Halo Mass Effect : Colonial War
by tobiisagoodboy94
Summary: When a research ship finds a anomoly at the edge of Harvests system, a young militiaman and the whole UNSC are thrown into a galaxy much larger than they could have dreamed. Pre-war UNSC, with a mixture of Halo and Mass Effect characters and some OCs, all fighting for humanitys and maybe, if time and money is left over, the Citadels future.
1. Prelude

Greetings, tobiisagoodboy94 here. Haven't been here for quite some time, well let's see how long I'll write this.

This chapter is mostly a compact introduction to the story setting, so not too much focus. First contact on Harvests gonna be a bit different from what we know.

So let's go

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Halo/ Mass Effect

Colonial War

Prelude

„Alright you maggots, listen up." The Sergeants voice rang over the country sides, the man was surely used to doing this, as his sharp voice made every present recruits snap to attention immediatly.

"My name is Staff Sergeant Johnson, but you will only address me with Sergeant, Sir or Great Lord Johnson our all savior. I will train you maggots and I will be your platoon Sergeant for the duration of your training. You may be volunteers and this may only be a colonial militia. But don't be mistaken, I will train you, I will make you cry, I will make you bleed, I will make you hate me and at the same time make you love so that you can only come if you think of my beautiful face. I don't care what you will do once your training is over and once I can go back my beloved Marine Corps, but the day this training ends you will be as skilled, but mostly likely not as good looking, as a Marine private." A few men grinned a little bit over Johnsons speech, well he could give them something for that.

"Alright ladies, since we are all so happy here, you will run, I repeat run, to the armory. In two minutes I will drive there with my Warthog and god help those poor souls who'll be there after me. Now go, double time." The armory was nearly half a mile away, so each recruit ran as fast as possible, nearly falling over each other.

Johnson on the other hand was now strolling towards his Warthog, which stood only a few meters away, but before he reached it, somebody intercepted him, a government worker from the colonial government.

"Staff Sergeant, Sir. I have an urgent message from the governor." Johnson didn't like this, personal messenger always meant secret information and secret informantions always meant extra work.

"Give it to me, boy." He snatched the datapad out of the young boys hands and quickly read through the text.

"In four weeks ? These eggheads want a militia team on their ship ? These men won't even have fired a real shot in four weeks, can't they just take police officers." The Sergeant didn't like this, an egghead ship was inbound to Harvest, they wanted to look at an anomaly that had popped up recently and they wanted to have military protection from the militia.

"No sir. They requested militia troops and won't accept police officers." The worker said and Johnson only sighed, as sat down behind the Warthogs steering wheal.

"I'll se what I can do, but I won't promise anything."

5 weeks later

The Keplar was no military vessel, that was for sure. The rooms were wide and well equipped, nothing like the quarters he knew from military ships. Every of his men had his own rooms here and there was still a lot space. The Keplar was a privately funded and operated research ship, which services the UNSC used from time to time. Except for its small civilian crew, everyone else on board was an egghead, over two dozen researchers. Their leader was just as crazy as he was brilliant, a quantum physicist, who was sure that the anomaly was of alien origin, which is why he had requested a military escort. But the Marines, the Army and the CMA had all denied him any support, so the militia had to be the one doing this.

A whole platoon, 36 men and Johnson as their commander, were on board, but the Sergeant did not really understand what they were supposed to do. The Keplar was completely unarmed and unarmoured, any possible alien just needed to cough at her to kill them all.

And even if anybody tried to board the ship, the militia wouldn't be able to do anything, they had had no real combat training and only a few hours on the shooting range, just enough to teach them not to kill each other and themselves.

"Sergeant, how great to see you. Ready to write history ?" the chief researchers asked him and he couldn't care less, those eggheads didn't even allow him to smoke on the ship.

The anomaly was some strange looking planetoid, at the edge of Harvests system, which some off the eggheads claimed was made by aliens.

"Ship's approaching the planetoid, all crew be ready for eventual turbulence." The captains voice came out of the ships speakers and again, Johnson couldn't care less. He was supposed to train militia men to fight Innies and afterwards go fight Innies himself, again.

"Alert, alert ! All personal to their stations immediately." Alright, about this Johnson cared now and he ran towards the bridge.

"The planetoid is breaking apart." The Captain explained as Johnson stormed on the ships small bridge, the eggheads seemed to going crazy, but all the Captain could think about was maneuvering the ships out of this mess.

"That dam rock started to break apart once we approached it and all scanners went nuts, those readings can't be true." The older man explained, between barking orders to what crew he had.

"Those readings are true, Captain. There is something inside that rock and its powering up." The head researcher explained, as he worked on a nearby console.

"There's something inside, that's powering up ? More than enough reason to get out of here." Johnson agreed to the Captain and the maneuver engines were using full power to move the ship away, but it was still painfully slow and a few of the larger chunks of rock only missed the a a few hundred feet.

"I'm getting more data on the object. These readings are going against anything we know." The researchers mumbled, but right now they were the only ones caring about it.

Four weeks later

They had been lucky to not been hit by any debris and now the ship was standing guard at the object. Sergeant Johnson had demanded that a ship was send to the next CMA facility directly. With its advanced sensors the Keplar was now working as a listening post, looking for any strange, well more strange than what they already saw, occurences around the object.

The militia men had nicknamed it the "Big stick" and it was fitting, it was a large metal structure, which had a slight similarity to a key, a round, flat torso with some sort of blue, glowing orb in the middle and two "arms stretching into one direction.

The readings from the object were still crazy, so Johnson didn't want to risk anything with it, unless it was guarded by at least half a dozen warships.

"Danger, dangerous level of energy output." The synthetic voice of the dumb AI, which helped the crew of the ship, shouted through the speakers, as Johnson bursted into the bridge again.

"What the hell happened ?" he asked, loudly, as walked towards the eggheads, because he could literally smell that it was their fault.

"The head scientist sen and unauthorized drone towards the object, which powered up and shoot it away." The captain and explained and Johnson was a bit puzzled.

"Shoot it away ? Like a mass driver ? Is that thing some sort of funky, alien MAC gun ?" the researchers shook their head, of course soldiers would only think of weapons.

"No, the speed, with which the drone was catapulted away was far beyond a simple mass driver, it broke any law of physics we know. Several million, if not billion, if not trillion times the speed of light, we couldn't really measure it."

Johnson was no scientist, but he had a basic understanding what the speed of light was.

"Sweet mother mercy. If that drone hits a ship, hell a planet, there'd be nothing left of either of them." He mumbled and this time the scientists agreed.

"No more interaction with this thing, I don't want any alien planet getting cracked open by our drones. We'll keep our distance and wait for the ships to arrive. If we're lucky they can take this thing out." The scientists were enraged now.

"Are you crazy, this is an alien artifact, with amazing technology and you want to destroy it ? Are you mental ?" Johnson didn't like civies talking like that and gave them a look, which stopped any complaining.

"What I see is massive mass driver, which could turn around and fire a rock at Harvest, which would go through the planet like its butter and most likely through a few million more planets, which would be unlucky enough to be in the way. We'll take it out of order and then you can research what remains." 'If something remains' he added in his head, there would be nothing left to haul to the lab, if they had to use the big guys.

"CMA will be here in a week, until then no more research, no more drones or I'll put a bullet between the eyes of the one who dares to defies this order."

A week later, the small CMA battlegroup reached the system, two light frigates and an old destroyer. Not as much as Johnson had wished for, but both the UNSC and the CMA fleets were spread thin. There were still dozens of rebel cells operating all over UEG space and combined the navies had only about 2 000 ship to cover about 800 worlds. So this battlegroup was already massive by CMA standards, who had already lost most of their ships to the UNSC, after the scandals concerning rebel infiltration and missing equipment.

The Heracles, the destroyer and 'flagship' of this small fleet was nearest to the object, as it suddenly powered up again and a second later, she disappeared in a fire ball.

"Something collided with the Heracles, all hands lost. Oh my god, there are more coming in." the XO on the 'Echons' bridge explained, nearly screaming. The Echons was an old light frigate, CMA had lost most of its new ships already, and now, out of nowhere, half a dozen ships of appeared around the object.

"Battlestation, I repeat, battlestations. Power up the MAC gun and warm up the Archer pods, this was an obvious act of aggression, whoever they are, they just killed hundreds of our people." The Echons captain ordered and the bridge turned into an organized mess, just like the Keplars bridge, but not because they got ready for battle.

"What do you mean these ships came through the object ? Are you telling me that one of their ships collided with the Heracles ? " Johnson tried to understand what the scientists were telling him.

"This was an accident, not an act of aggression. You need to tell the CMA to stand down." The scientists tried to tell him, but it was already too late.

Through the bridges windows, they saw how both frigates unleashed dozens of Archer rockets, all of them racing towards the enemy ships, which were only a few hundred miles away from them.

But the alien ships had a point defense system and it was better than everything Johnson had ever seen before, within a second, nearly all rockets exploded, before hitting anything and those few, which made it through, only hit some sort of barrier.

"They're returning fire", the Captain cried out, as the aliens returned the favour. Several projectiles, fired by some sort of mass drivers, raced towards the ships, with an abnormal speed. The frigates had not much armour, 30 cm plates at best, so the damage they took was immense. One had its whole right side torn open, while the other was punctured like a swiss cheese, after the ships had fired two dozen rounds in a short time.

"Nuclear alert !" they really had brought the big guys, Johnson thought, as both frigates fired half a dozen ten mega-tonne warhead, all of their nuclear ordonance, at the enemy. This time it didn't matter if they were intercepted shortly before, the nuclear explosions still swallowed three of the enemy ships, leaving nothing but burning wreckage.

But the battle was over now, the remaining aliens now fired non stop, until the frigates were nothing but dead, torn apart metal and then they turned towards the Keplar.

"Get us out of here, now, spin up the slip-space engine and go. What the ?" Johnson orders came too late, suddenly the ships disappeared and only a moment later reappeared, right next to the ship.

"An in-system jump. No slips-pace ruptures detected, how ?" the scientist mumbled, but Johnson already knew what was gonna happen, as he barked into his radio

"This is Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson. All men prepare for enemy boarding parties, this is not a drill." He was right, a single small round from the alien ships only narrowly missed the fusion engine and took out both the sub-light and the slipspace engine, they were dead in the water.

Sirens screamed to through the ship, they still had power, but no engines and no ship to ship weapons.

The militia men were already spreading through the ship, forming six man teams, to cover as many corridors as possible.

Johnson stayed with one team in reserve, to coordinate the defense as good as possible. Several strange objects from the alien ship had broken through the ships hull, propably carrying boarding parties, so the men had formed defensive perimeters around the bridge and the fusion plant.

Marc Bradley and his team were covering one of the three corridors leading to the bridge, they had thrown some chairs and metal crates in front of them, to form some makeshift cover and barricades.

They were six man, five armed with Assault rifle and Bradley himself armed with a brand-new battle rifle, hardly enough to stop any properly trained opponent.

Marc himself was only eighteen years old and his father had nearly torn of his head when he found out that his son had joined the militia, while his grandpa, a former CMA Marine, had threatened to disown his grandchild for joining a UNSC sponsored formation.

Now they aimed their guns to where an enemy to come from and then, after a few minutes, one came. It looked strange, humanoid, but with legs more fitting a bird and a strange head or better helmet shape.

But none of the militia men took their time to look at it properly, they rather fired a few dozen rounds at it, surprising and seemingly killing it, after half of the round had been stopped by some sort of shield. The others aliens, coming around the corner, directly took what cover they could find and returned fire, with some sort of blue projectiles.

One of the militia men went down directly, as his head was torn of his torso, after one of the projectiles had penetrated his neck. But the others didn't care right now, Bradley aimed carefully and delivered a headshot to one of the aliens. It's shields collapsed and the round turned its head in a blue mess. So their blood was blue, interesting.

The aliens had now lost two of theirs and their fire got far more accurate, within a minute every militiamen, except for Bradley was dead. But he still returned fire, he only stopped when he was hit by some sort of different projectile, which through him back several feet and knocked him out.

It took the aliens only a few minutes to overwhelm the few defenders, losing ten of theirs, 6 of which could be credited to Johnson, who still broke one of the aliens arms, even after he had lost his gun and got a stun round to the chest, and for whom three of the aliens had been necessary to restrain. Now he, Bradley and half a dozen more surviving militia men, plus the whole crew were captured.

If the battle in space had been one-sided, than the battle for Harvest itself was just a joke. The remaining militia men and police officers had only been able to resist for like ten minutes, until the might of the aliens had overwhelmed them. 300 000 humans were now in the aliens hands, but a freighter had escaped via emergency slip-space. The UEG would know of this and they would come to fight back.

Eight weeks later

The alien occupation had been less worse than expected. Communication was still limited to basic sign language, but the aliens didn't seem to be that horrible. The militia men were still captured by them, by they had even let the police continue their work. Since Harvest was a major farming colony, food was no problem, but the aliens didn't even try to eat anything they produced.

Nothing indicated an occupation, except for a few patrol or a lonely alien vehicle driving through the city. The aliens had only a small garrison on the ground and after taking out the colonies single mass driver , which was actually meant as a garbage disposer, the aliens had simply left the population alone. But they had nearly freaked out once they found out about the colonies smart farming AI, but after it had tricked them into believe that they had turned it off, they had been rather relaxed.

This was about to change, since the largest fleet of spaceships in human history was approaching the colony. Fourty warships, lead by a massive Valiant-class super-heavy cruiser and under the command of the arguably best tactician humanity had to offer, were on their way to liberate the world and save the people.

" We dropped out of slip-space, 300 000 miles away from Harvest, first sensor readings indicate that the aliens are still in the system. We are between the planet and the alien object t, just like you wanted to Vice-Admiral." Cole had taken every precaution necessary, half of his fleet would guard the object, to prevent any alien reinforcements to arrive, while he would lead the other units to liberate the planet. Johnson had sent a data package, containing all data about the short battle, to the ship that escaped, so Cole knew everything he cloud about the enemy.

Nuclear weapons were effective against the aliens, but using these weapons near the planet could damage the colony, so they had to use carefully aimed MAC round, since stray shoots could wipe out a whole city, if they were unlucky.

Johnson was still rebellious, as one of the aliens, who looked like strange dinosaurs, lead him away from his men. They propably knew that he was a 'high-ranking officer', a description which would normally be a heavy insult for the NCO, otherwise they would have not accepted the fact that Johnson head-butted the poor trooper which escorted him.

They sat him down on a table, in a small room and a few seconds later, the Sergeants chin nearly hit the desk in front of him. Another alien, a completely different species, approached him, blue skinned, with strange tentacle hair but still amazingly looking by human standards.

"Hello good-looking. Are you trying to use the battalions hookers to get information out of me, well I could live with that." He didn't expect an answer, so his surprise was even larger, as the alien replied in clean, but slightly synthetic English, she must be using a translator.

"No Staff Sergeant, that is not our plan and I am no hooker. My name is Nerez Benzia and I'm a diplomat and envoy of the Citadel. I'm here, because we need your help."

Johnson was not a person who would stay shocked for long, so he replied, with his usual wit

"Well, good looking, how could an old leather neck like me help a young girl like you ?" the alien grinned widely about this, before she said.

"My species, the Asari, can get over one thousand of your years old. I myself am 750 years old." Ok now Johnson was surprised and couldn't hide it, 750 years, god dammit.

"We just finished the translation of your language, that VI of yours was very helpful in that. An hour ago a large fleet of your UNSC, that's the name of your military, right, appeared. It's lead by a ship we can only describe as a super-dreadnought and it has blocked our acsess to the Mass Relay. From what we have seen of your technology until now, we can only assume that the ships we have will not be sufficient to stop them." She explained and now it was Johnsons turn to grin widely.

"So you're asking me to tell them to not crush you, well that can be arranged." But the Asari now also grinned, which slightly confused the Sergeant,

"No I'm asking you to tell your fleet to stay down. Two of our fleets are waiting on the other end of the Mass relay to intervene if needed. One hundred ships, against your ships and your tech. What I'm offering you is a chance to prevent any unnecessary blood shed."

"Vice-Admiral, we're getting hailed by Harvest. UNSC identification codes and priority signal." the Everests AI, Messner, alarmed Cole, who ordered him to put it through.

"This is Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson, UNSC Marine Corps. I'm here with an alien ambassador and she informed me that, in case you attack, they will bring in reinforcements numbering over a hundred ships. They offer a cease fire." The bridge crew looked at Cole, disbelief in their faces. Was this true ? Or was it a trap.

"This is sounds all nice and peachy Staff Sergeant. But how can I know that there isn't an alien soldier pointing a weapon at your head, forcing you to lie to me ? Or better, how do I know that the aliens aren't gonna open fire once we step down." Cole replied and for a few moments there was silence.

"They offer to land the ships that still guard Harvest and retreat out of all settlements. They'll release all prisoners and retreat to some camps outside the population centers." Sergeant Johnson was a small legend within the UNSC, Cole couldn't imagine a man like that letting himself get used by the aliens.

"Alright Sergeant. Your alien friends have one hour, then I'll send my Marines and they'll fire on any alien that is not at least trying to leave Utgard." Protocol would have demanded from Cole to send these aliens to hell, but with a chance like this, a chance to solve this peacefully, he simply couldn't let this chance pass.

"Copy that, they will leave." The connection was now terminated and Cole started to bark order around.

"I want the _Aachens_ Pelicans ready, tell them to send down every man they can. And add a few Longswords for air space coverage. Tell them to keep an eye on those alien ships down there and have the fleet reunite near the object. The Everest will be enough to keep an eye on their ships." Both Messner and the members of the bridge crew gave him a short salute and raced to fulfill their orders.

On board the Aachen, which was an Orion-class carrier, one of the most powerful classes of warships the UNSC had, heavily armed and equipped with automated miniature factory and chemical processors, these ships were both capital warships, fleet support ships and carriers at the same time. They were slightly smaller than the massive super-cruiser and lacked some of its armament and especially its immense armor.

All of its flight decks were now busy, deck crews preparing Longswords and Pelican, groups of Marines gathering to get on board. Ten minutes before the end of Coles deadline, dozens of these aircraft left the carrier, forming a loose formation of nearly a hundred small ships, racing for harvest and its capital. Johnson and Bradley were now standing on top of the parliament building of Utgard, watching as the sky filled with countless human jets and dropships.

Only one alien was still in the city or not busy getting out of it, Nerez the Asari, would stay as an envoy.

"Haven't seen this many military hardware since Eridanus Not bad, right boy ?" Bradley only nodded in agreement, it was something uplifting to see this demonstration of human strength.

"I know this is a bit out of place Sergeant, but I wanted apply for the military and I wanted to ask you for a recommendation." Johnson started to laugh, as he took a Sweet Williams cigar out and lit it

"Depends for which branch you want to apply boy. "He said, still with a wide grin, as he took a deep breath of smoke.

"Marines, sir. Officers." Bradley replied and again Johnson laughed, before he replied

"Not bad boy, not bad. But let me tell you one thing, if you bring shame to my beloved corps, not even a five star general can protect you from me." Bradley was still intimidated by the NCO, not really knowing if this was a yes or a no.

"Relax boy. I'll se what I can do for you. You did a good job on the Keplar, killing on these freaks, with a headshot no less. Now take this and relax, it's gonna put some hair on your chest." Johnson finally broke the uneasy silence and offered one of his cigars to the young man. Marc was no smoker, but he would never say no to a good cigar

He lit it and took a deep breath, making the Sergeant laugh even more.  
"Well, maybe we really can make a Marine out of you boy. Ever heard about Corbulo Academy ?"

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Prelude done, let's see how this goes on.

A few words about the story:

I will try to stay true to what information there is about the Halo universe, for example that the Valiant-class is nearly two times the size of a small turian dreadnougth. Neither the UNSC, nor the Citadel are gonna stomb each other with super tech. So please no "But the colour of the standard Marines BDU underpants is light green, not green mimimi" or "Rofl XD the UNSC should be crushing those fuckers, lol.".

On the other hand critique and reviews are always welcome.

tobiisagoodboy94 out.


	2. Chapter 1: Emergency Diplomacy

Tobiisagoodboy94 here, well that went fast. But don't expect it to last, I'm normally crazy fast during the first chapters, just to slow down massivly later. But here is the next chapter.

A few answers to questions from the reviews:

\- The human ships in the short battle were old CMA buckets, with not much armor or weapons, modern human ships, esspecially Cruisers will have far better chances than those poor souls

\- Spartans. Well of course they exsist, but we will see what will happen.

But now have fun with the story

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Halo

Colonial wars

Chapter 1

Emergency diplomacy

„Alright, Miss… Nerez. Let me repeat what you just told me. You were an observer on this… turian patrol, right ?" the Asari woman, which was very attractive, Cole had admit, nodded and the Vize-Admiral went on.

They had brought the alien to the Everest, to interrogate or better, negotiate with her.

"Your patrol noticed an unauthorized activation of an Mass Relay, so you went through the Relay to investigate. One of your ships then collided with one our ships on the other side and the two remaining ships opened fire and finally destroyed half of your patrol with nuclear weapons. You then retaliated, seized all ships in the system and occupied the colony with what forces you had left. Oh and you prepared reinforcements, which are still waiting on the other side of the Relay. Did I miss anything ?"

The Asari was relaxed, why shouldn't she, she was 750 years old and had faced far worse than these people. Angry Krogans or Batarian slavers for example.

"Yes Vice-admiral this is correct. Not mentioning that you broke half a dozen important Citadel laws and treaties, by using nuclear ordonance, activating Mass Relays and constructing AI." She added but Cole just went on.

"I don't care about treaties my government didn't sign. Leaving these aside, we can both agree that this was a tragic incident, right ? Our ship fired, believing that they were under attack and you retaliated. I can't blame you and the Turians, neither can I blame the dead human crews." Two days had passed since they had agreed on the cease fire. Most of the turian soldiers had retreated to the three remaining ships they had, which were landed on the planet, while Coles fleet was still securing the planet and Relay.

"Yes, an unfortunate incident nobody can be blamed for. And I am pretty sure that our governments will find a solution for the problems." Nerez agreed, she was experienced enough to let it stay like that and instead changed topics.

"I contacted the council and informed them about the situation, they offer that a diplomatic envoy from your government could return to the Citadel, together with me. So the necessary negotiations can start."

Cole nodded his head, he had contact with the Security Council yesterday and, even though ONI had shown discontent for that, they choose him as the envoy to the Citadel.

"I will be that envoy. I and an escort of soldiers will go with you. My government gave me the necessary clearance to function as humanities ambassador in this matter." The Asari grinned now, but Cole was too much of a professional and had had to many wifes to get confused by a womens grin.

"A military leader as an ambassador, I think the Turians are gonna like you, Vice-Admiral."

12 hours later

"Alright Bradley, enlistments gonna wait, you are coming with me." Marc was just about to give back his gun and helmet, as Johnson bursted into the makeshift armory and interrupted him.

"Pardon me sir. I was just about to sign the slip to leave the militia. What do you need me for ?" Bradley asked, confused, while the police officer, who was supposed to take back his equipment, didn't have much patience, it was nearly night and he wanted home.

"Orders from the Vice-Admiral himself. Everybody, who had first contact with these aliens, is gonna come with him. You're still a member of the militia, so his word is law. Look at the bright side kid. If you impress Cole, you can get any job in the corps you want." Johnson replied and now told the police officer to take Bradleys equipment, except for the rifle. He would get a full set on the Aachen.

"Grandpas gonna kill me." Marc mumbled, as he followed Johnson to a Pelican, which waited nearby. Except for him and Johnson, there was nobody inside of it, except for the pilots

The Aachens armory was fast and efficient and two hours after he had entered the ship, he was already finished. The young militiamen now wore a complete Marine BDU, full armor and helmet and he almost looked like a real Marine.

"Alright young lady. Can't call you maggot anymore, now that you wear this beautiful armor. You will accompany me and the Vice-Admiral to the aliens 'Citadel'. Don't worry kiddo, you won't have to actually protect him. You and me will socialize with the local population, get some information, maybe snatch one or two of their little toys while nobody is watching. Like I said, do this right and I'm gonna make sure you can get a ticket to whatever branch you want."

Marc now saluted him again and gained a little chuckle from the Sergeant.

"Alright boy. As long as we are on this mission, you will be Private First Class Bradley and you're already 22 years old, not 18. You will act like a soldier, you will salute any officer and NCO you meet and you will follow their orders. See it as a taste of being an actual soldier. If you still want to join the Corps after this, come to me and I'll give you your ticket." Johnson said and then smiled again, before finishing.

"We got 2 hours before our shuttle leaves for that alien ship. Let's see if they have something to drink on this carrier."

The ride to the alien, well turian ship was short. It had positioned itself right between the Aachen and the Everest, so both shuttles were there within a few minutes. Marcs and Johnsons shuttle was also filled to the limit with food and other supplies. The Asari had warned them that they couldn't eat turian food, unless they liked allergic reaction, vomiting and possible death, so these supplies were meant for the small delegation. They didn't want to risk sending any human ship through the Relay, they had been warned that ships not equipped for this could get their whole systems fried by the Relay, so the turian frigate would have to do.

Nerez and a turian were waiting in the ships small hangar bay, which was now completely full, with the two human shuttles inside.

"Vice-admiral Cole, Staff Sergeant Johnson. I'm happy to welcome you onboard the Navos. This is Commander Antares, the captain of this ship." The Asari offered her hand to the humans, but first all off them, even Marc, gave the Commander a sharp salute, which he replied with his own and a small grin, or what could be counted as a grin, considering the fact that he had mandibles instead of lips.

"Welcome on board my ship. It's not as large as yours, but I hope it will do." Antares also greeted them and then offered his head, which first Cole and then Johnson shook.

"Don't worry about us. I'm used to far smaller ships." Cole had to admit that the translation program was working fantastic, the aliens had send it to them and after Messner had checked it for viruses, they had installed it into every neural interface and translator they had.

The commander now lead them to their quarters, Cole got the XOs single quarter, while Marc had to share with three other marines. The beds were not meant for humans, they could sleep on them but even the beds on the smallest and oldest UNSC ship were better than this. The Marines and Marc had just stored away their equipment, as one of the soldiers finally addressed him.

"So you're the militia guy the Staff Sergeant brought with him. Heard you killed one of these Turians, perfect headshot." The man said and a slightly intimidated Marc needed a few moments before he replied "Yeah, got a lucky shot on one of them and painted the wall blue with his head." He mustered a weak smile and after a few uneasy seconds of silence, the three Marines started to laugh and patted him on the back.

"Well done boy. Being able to control a battle rifle and getting a clear headshot is pretty good for only five weeks of training. The sergeant told us that you want to join the corps and that we should keep you save. Well, we'll make sure that you can kick any snob ass in academy once you're there." Marc still didn't know what to do with this, these men were soldiers, experienced marines, them treating him like this seemed not right.  
"Thanks, but please no special treatment. I want to prove what I'm worth, gonna be hard enough in the academy like it is already" he said and the Marines agreed with a little 'amen'. They were all simply infantryman, privates, so they of course had a distaste for the high ranks.

Vice-Admiral Cole was the exception from this, nobody allowed any bad words about him, he got respect from everybody.

The trip took them only two days, which Marc mostly spend with his new roommates, since Johnson spend most of his time around with the other Sergeants and marc didn't know anyone else on the ship. So he stayed with the Marines, who made it their duty and fun to prepare the young man for his future career in the corps, which included some theory, but mostly telling him all the jokes and tricks he had to be aware off and off course some physical training.

The sport equipment was not what they were used to, but with some improvisation it worked and it was during a training session, that they had their first contact with some turian marines.

Luckily the turians Omni-tools, how they called their little, portable, personal computers, translated both turian to English and English to turian.

"Hey humans. There is a rumor that one of you pyjaks spits around lies, about having killed a turian marine." one of the turians, one with a paler skins, approached them, followed by half a dozen other marines.

"Yeah, dino. Our little private here gave one of your marines a headshot, when they boarded the Keplar. Don't take it personal, that was just his job." Private Koslinski replied, not really paying attention to the turian, who stepped right in front of him.

"Well, even you pyjaks can have luck sometimes. But I'm pretty sure that in a real fight, with your crappy armor and guns, you wouldn't even lay a scratch on me." Koslinski was not an idiot, he smelled a bait when it was laid out in front of him, so he signaled the others to get ready to leave. Their job here was to be nice and these turians were looking for trouble.

"Let's hope we'll never have to find out, it's not like 7,62s had any problem with your eggshells. Wouldn't want to see what a big gun does with them." The turian clicked his mandibles in replay and his fellow soldiers seemed to unsure what to do. They had the advantage, they had the numbers and the humans had just exhausted themselves, but they would most likely all end up in the brig and then get throw out of the military for beating these humans to a pulp, so for now they let them go.

"Thank god that we'll reach that Citadel soon. Not sure how long I could hold back from smashing that guys ugly face." Koslinski told the others, once they were back in the quarters and gained some agreeing mumbling. Tensions between the different armed forces were normal in human space, so the turians attempts to bait them into violence were nothing new to them.

UNSC and CMA Marines hated each other, Army and Marines were like two siblings who couldn't stand each other and everybodies opinion on the Air Force was bad, so every soldier knew from experience how to handle such tension. And a bunch of pissed ODSTs was far more scary, than some turians.

Strange, now that Marc thought about this, why were there no ODSTs on this mission, all he had seen on the shuttle were navy personal and normal Marines, no ODSTs or obvious ONI agents. Maybe they wanted to keep them as a trump card, in case the situation escalates into war, a nice surprise for the aliens. Marc had to chuckle a little, imagining the surprised face of that pale turian soldier, as hundreds of ODSTs were raining down on him.

"Wow, that's big." Koslinski commented, as they got ready for departure, two hours later and managed to get short look on the Citadel. The biggest things humanity had ever build in space were the massive dry-docks around Reach and Mars, but those were not even close to the size of this station.

"Goddammit, look at that thing. Each of this wings must house millions, it's like a whole mega city." Marc now agreed on Koslinskis comment, the Citadel was surely amazing. A few minutes later, their shuttle, they still used the human shuttles, landed in one of the stations numerous landing bays and the moment the shuttle doors opend, they were overwhelmed, not by beauty or light, but noise.

Hundreds if not thousands of aliens, Asari, Turians and several more, tried to get a look on the two shuttles and their passengers and only a thin line of what appeared to be police held them back.

"What are they thinking, a first contact like this ? We wouldn't even tell the public until we were one thousand percent sure that the aliens were peaceful and they act like we're some attraction." Cole mumbled to himself, as the Marines shielded him against the eyes and cameras of the surrounding press. He hated journalists, he knew they were necessary and played an important role in society, but still he hated them, he hated to answer them and he especially hated their ability to show up wherever they are not needed.

"Be ready to hold them back, if those police troops fail to do their job. No gun fire, just some muscles and maybe a few rifles to the face." Cole ordered the Marines, who closed their formation around him. They held their guns in front of them, not aiming at anyone or anything, but ready to react. Thankfully, the police aliens seemed to know what they were doing and after a minute they formed a corridor through the masses.

The humans followed Nerez, who guided them their way to an elevator, where the group was split, Cole and a teamt of Marines in one, Johnson, Marc and the rest in the other.

Humanity had already built commercial space-stations, trading hubs full of life and commerce, but those were nothing compared to this place, this placed seemed like a capitol, a center of a whole civilization.

"Man, don't even wanna know what it costed them to build this thing. The price for a Valiant cruiser nearly made me cry when I once heard it, but this thing must cost more than all the money on Reach combined." Johnson commented, he wasn't that happy since he had been forbidden to smoke, at least in the elevator.

"But well, seems like they saved some money with these things, they're slow as hell." He added and Marc and the other Marine agreed with a nod, these elevators were a nightmare of slowness.

After several minutes, they finally reached their destination, the Presidium, which was completely different from any human space-station, like this whole place. It was open and wide, had plants and water, anything humanity had built in space until now was normally claustrophobic, tight and had surely no place for plants or waterfalls.

A few armed police aliens, C-Sec, how Nerez had called them, stopped them before the entrance to the council halls, telling them that only two armed guards were allowed inside. Cole signaled them that it was alright and once the Vice-Admiral and his guards had disappeared behind the doors, Johnsons and marcs actual mission started.

"Alright Marines, you stay here and keep an eye out for trouble, while I put so hair on our newbies chest." Johnson ordered the men, who knew about the mission, and who now spread themselves around the area, but not too far away from the gates.

"Hey, officer. Do you know a good place to get a drink here. Me and the Private here are thirsty." Johnson asked one of the turian C-Sec officers, who was surprised for a few seconds, but then answered.

"The Afterburn is a good place. It's not too far away and not too high society. But watch out for the turian Marines, they're not too happy about you humans." Johnson thanked the alien, after he had explained the way to the bar and then dragged Marc towards it.

"Alright, here's the plan. Get some drinks, get to know the locals and then, if we get a chance, maybe take or two of their toys, while nobody watches." Johnson filled Marc in on the plan, once they were out of C-Secs hearing range.

The Afterburn was only a few minutes away from the presidium, a small bar slightly hidden away from the public eye. Inside there were a few dozen aliens of all species, ranging from jellyfishes to giant dinosaur aliens. A four-eyes alien, a Batarian stood behind the counter, cleaning some glasses and each of his four eyes opened widely in surprise, when he saw Johnson and Marc. Nerez had supplied them with some credits, so at least paying was no problem.

"Barkeep, what do you have in store to put some hair on the chest off this newbie. No turian stuff, don't like the prospect off drinking myself to death." Johnson asked and after a few seconds of inspection, the barkeeper grinned, as started to pour some black liquid into two glasses.

"You're those humans, right ? Heard you gave the turians a good fight, killed six of their Marines." He now placed the glasses in front of the humans, who inspected them for a few moment.

"Batarian black beer, strong and deep." The alien added as Johnson and Marc tried. It was strong, stronger than most stuff Marc had tried in his young life, but not bad, with a deep flavor, like the Batarian had promised. Johnson simply poured down the whole glass in one go, earning another surprised look from the barkeeper.

"Not bad, not bad at all." The Sergeant commented, as he put down the empty glass and took out some credit chips to pay.

"Don't bother. Let's see that a welcome gift to the Citadel." The barkeeper said, but now several turians approached them from behind.

"So you are humans. Don't look so though." One of the commented, but neither Johnson nor Marc fell for any bait right now.

"I heard some strange rumor, that a human soldier took out four marines and took three stun round to the chest, before they could restrain him, must be some dirty lies." Now Johnson laughed about the comment, his eyes raced to the turians pistols for a moment and he got an idea.

"Well, since I'm the one who did that, I can tell you that it's true." Johnson replied and several people started to mumble around them and the bar keeper already made sure that his shotgun was in range, in case things got out of control.

The turians started to laugh, but they stopped as they realized that Johnson was serious, they got angry.  
"So you just want to spit lies or prove your claims ?" the turians were obviously out for conflict and this time Johnson would give it to them, but on his terms.

"What about a little bet. Some arm wrestling. If I win against you, you will give me your gun. And if your win you'll get mine." He now showed them his pistol, standard M6 miltiary pistol with 12,7 mm semi-armor penetration rounds, these babies could go through armor and then make a little firework inside the victim.

"Like you'll have any chance." The turian mumbled, as they went to one of the tables and got ready. The bar keeper relaxed again and a small crowd formed around the match, an Asari had agreed to play referee and after a few moments they started. The turian directly went into the offensive and tried to push down Johnsons arm with all his strength, but all he got from the Sergeant was a slightly yawn.

"Come on boy. You sure can do better than that." He encouraged the alien, who only got enraged by that, but still couldn't move Johnsons arm, not even by an inch, it seemed like it was made of stone.  
"You know skimpy, this was all nice and funny, but I still got things to do, so let's finish this." Everything went fast, incredibly fast once the Sergeant had finished his sentence and a horribly cracking noise made it clear to everybody, that it went too fast for the turian, who now lay on the ground groaning, holding his right arm, which was bend in a direction, which was not healthy.

"Well, that now belongs to me." Johnson, not really caring about the whimpering Marine, who now got helped up by his comrades, said as he reached for the turians gun, which was still laying on the table. It was a standard issue military pistol and for a moment the turian wanted to take it back, but thecrowd around them made them realize that making up a story for losing it was propably easier and healthier.

"So who's next ?" Johnson asked into the crowd and Marc finally understood what the Sergeant plans was and it was brilliant, although the Sergeant unhuman strength was a bit unnerving. An Asari stepped forward and placed a box on the table "I bet this, light armor pack, newest barriers and super light armor plates. The best on the market, what can you hold against that ?" she grinned, hoping to impress the old soldier with that, but he just waved Marc to him and took his battle-rifle.

"The boys gun, my pistol and one pack of Sweet Williams Cigars, the best in the galaxy." Marc really didn't like the idea that the Sergeant was betting his rifle, but well, everything for the mission. The Asari seemed satisfied with that offer and a few moments later they started. This time it was different for the Sergeant, at first it seemed easy, but them the hand of the alien started to strangly glow and suddenly she appeared to become far stronger than before. Some in the crowd around them mumbled something about Biotics, but nobody had forbidden them, so there was nothing really about it.

"Ok, pretty bird. You're far more a man that that birdie boy before, but a Marine never goes down without a fight." Johnson said, struggling, but now he slowly pushed the Asaris arms down. It nearly took him a minute, but finally, the aliens hand touched the table and an exhausted Johnson was finished, winning a new set of armor. A Batarian, who hoped that he could win against a now exhausted Johnson, lost his Omni-tool a minute later and than everybody took a step back, as one of the giant dino aliens approached them, a Krogan.

"Hehe, you gave a good show, human. But what about some real challenge. Here my bottle of Ryncol against your cigars." He offered and Johnson directly agreed, not caring if he could even drink the strange liquid inside the aliens bottle. This time, the confrontation took three whole minutes, three minutes in which neither side even gave an inch. For the whole time, both hands were right in the middle, only slightly moving to one sight for a second, before getting pushed back into the middle. Finally, both sides gave up, after three minutes it was clear that nobody could win this.

"Haha, I like you human. You got some fire, in difference to those Turians. Here, let's take a drink, the kid too." The bar keeper decided not to anger the Krogan by forbidding him to drink his own stuff in the bar, so the alien poured some strange, green liquid into three small glasses and took one himself.

"On the human who killed four turian marines and broke the bones of two more." For a second Marc looked at the strange liquid, before he added to the toast "On Staff Sergeant Johnson." Which most of the bar agreed on.

If the batarian beer had been strong, than this was pure gasoline, gasoline with an interesting flavor, but still incredibly strong, so strong that Marc could swore that he could still set his piss on fire later. He slightly stumbled as they finally left the bar, after Johnson had emptied another drink snd smoked a cigar with the Krogan. They put their trophies into Marcs tornister, their mission had been a full success.

In the council chambers, during Johnsons and Marcs little excursion

"We welcome to the Citadel, Vice-Admiral Cole. I can't put into words how happy we are that you have come here today." The Asari councilor, Tevos greeted Cole and his escort and from the very first moment the Admiral wished himself far, far away from here. He had done his research during the travel and he knew that the third councilors race was Salarian, he knew the names of the councilors and he knew most of the Councils rules.

But he was a soldier, he had always been and the one things soldiers like him couldn't stand were politicians and now he was hear with three of them.

"Thank you, councilor, I am happy to be here. I hope that we can clear up the incident that happened an find a peaceful solution." Cole replied, as nice as he could and earned a friendly nood from the Asari.

"You are aware of the problems that have come up ? Considering your use of nuclear ordonance and the creationg of sentient AI ? You know that these are outlawed in Citadel space ?" the turian councilor now asked, with a hard but calm voice, in difference to Tevos warm and welcoming tone.

"Yes, but I don't think that I am the right person, nor do I think that this is the right place and time discuss this. You will agree to that, right ?" Cole tried to avoid this, he was no diplomat, he was here to play nice during the first meeting and make sure that the aliens wouldn't shoot the next envoy they send.

"Yes that is true, Vice-Admiral, still, I am concerned about your AIs, as you are aware we had our problems with them, before." The salarian and added, but Cole kept his calm, he wasn't an expert but he had his own theory but the AI thing.

"The Geth, you're AI problem, were created by accident and then their creators attempted to eradicate them. Their resistance was to be expected. Our AIs were created as such, we created them as sentient and we always treated them as sentient. For the last two hundred years we existed together with AI and never had any problems, as long as we treated them as equals and sentient beings." There was some mumbling on the ranks around them, many obviously were not satisfied with Coles answer, but the Councilors would leave it like that for the moment.

" I think that this short lived conflict we had can be ended without any demands for reperations. Both sides suffered casualties, but by your own accounts the few soldiers that occupied your colony acted like professionals and didn't cause any damage. We will also give back the 'Keplar' immediately." The turian councilor now changed topics and Cole thanked him for this, at first look, gesture of kindness. But Cole would eat his officer diploma if these aliens hadn't scanned and inspected any atom of the ship, including it's slip-space engine.

The talks now went on, but nothing major was reached, but nobody had expected anything, after all this was just a first meeting. There was a short uproar when Cole noted that the UNSC had no interest in joining the Citadel or putting itself under the Councils rule, but this question was pushed to future meetings. After two hours the first meeting was done and Cole was relieved when he finally left the council halls, because now he could leave any future meetings to the diplomatic corp.

The Marines were already waiting for him and they directly headed back to their shuttles, since Cole had nothing to do here anymore and his fleet was waiting for him. Again Nerez escorted, while Johnsons trophies were hidden in Coles package now, since nobody would control a diplomats baggage.

Their ride back to Harvest was different, a civilian Asari ship, far more comfortable than a small turian frigate and the Marines could relax a little, since the Asari crew was very friendly and, if at all only curious about them. More than once Johnson had to make sure that no Marine came too close for comfort to an Asari, since the aliens seemed have some sort aura, which made them nearly unresistable for the soldiers.

The ride back home took them two days and once their shuttle landed on the Aachens deck Marc said goodbye to his new friends.

"Alright kid. Watch out for yourself and don't you ever dare ordering me around, even if they give you one hundred stars." Koslinski said goodbye to Marc, before Marc turned towards the Staff Sergeant.

"Listen up boy. I asked the Vice-Admiral and he was pleased with your performance. You didn't do anything special, but for a civie like you, doing nothing wrong in this situation is already pretty good." He now handed him a piece of paper, before he went on

"In one month you'll go to Corbulo Academy. It's normally only for the kids of staff and flag officers, but with my and the Vice-Admirals nice words they gave you a place. Don't mess up boy." He offered his hand to Marc, who happily shook it and smiled.

"Alright now get out of that uniform. You got to earn your right to wear it and right now you're only qualified for the helmet."

Chapter 1

End

* * *

Well, now that's done.

I tried to keep this short, not too much unnecessary stuf. I don't like the idea, that they discuss everything during the very first meeting, that is simply unrealistic, such things are normally left to the diplomats, not the politicians.

The next few chapters will be about Marcs time at the Academy, because you guessed it, Marc is gonna be our main character. What happens in the larger galaxy will mostly be told via News or Codex entry, yes starting with the next chapter there will codex entrys giving additional back ground information.

Well Harvest is still unglassed and Marc is going to Corbulo, you can imagine who and what will show up next.

But until then, tobiisagoodboy94 out.


	3. Chapter 2: Welcome to school

tobiisagoodboy here again. Well that went fast, but don't expect it to last. Once my writing mood chages again, upload speed will surely be much slower.

But for now have fun

* * *

Halo

Colonial War

Chapter 2

Welcome to school

„Alright boy, ever been in a cryo tube ?" the soldiers asked Marc, as he was taking on the cryo suit. He had heard from his parents about cryo tubes and he had never liked that, the thought of being frozen for weeks was not really a nice one.

"Don't worry, everything will be fine. Those tubes and the drugs we give you have been used billions of times. Allergic reactions or other problems are rare and even if something happens, you'll only notice it after getting out of these again." The sergeant reassured Marc as he stepped into one of the tubes.

The first step was the injection of the drugs, a short sting and then a strange sensation, numbing and fizzy and then after a few minutes, a short sensation of a stinging cold and the next thing he remembered was waking up again, three weeks later. At first he was gasping for air, it felt like he had held his breath for an eternity, but after a few seconds it got easier and the pod opened again, with a strange his.

"See boy. No burn or allergic reactions, not bad for the first round in the tube." The same sergeant that had put him in the tube three weeks ago now greeted him again and helped the young men out of it and the cryo suit.

The stay in the cryo tube had been a little favor the ship captain had given Marc, a test for him, since stays in such tubes were normal for Marines, so Marc wanted to test, which after a few medical tests he had gotten a green light for.

"Welcome to Circinius, home to Corbulo Academy of Military Science." The ride down to the planets orbital elevator was not very pleasant and heavily reminded him of the shuttle ride to the turian ship, since the Pelican was stuffed to the top with cargo.

The same thing was true for the elevator, which brought him to the planets surface. This wasn't Marcs first ride in such an elevator, he had once went to Harvests space station, together with his father, so he already expected the feeling of slight weightlessness, as the elevator started to move towards the surface. And of course he had used such an elevator several time during his time in the militia.

The ride down only took a few minutes, but Marc was grateful as the doors opened and a weak wind blew into his face. He had been the only person in the elevator, so he was directly addressed, once he put a foot outside the metal bow.

"Marc Bradley, colonel Mehaffey is waiting for you in her office. Follow me." One of the Marines addressed him and signaled Marc to follow him, while the remaining soldiers started to unload the elevator.

Marc himself only had a large backpack with some clothes and few personal things, since he ahd been told that he wouldn't need more here. The soldier guided him through the hallways of the large building complex, passing groups of older students, some of which looked after him, mumbling something, before they got yelled at by the officers leading of teaching them.

After ten minutes and over half a mile of walking, the soldier stopped in front of an office door, knocking at it. For a few second there was silence, until a stern "Come in" came out of the room.

The Marine opened the door and saluted the Colonel, who stood up and returned the salute. Marc had been told by the other Marines that he shouldn't salute anybody as long as he wasn't wearing any uniform, so he just waited for 'ceremony' to end.

"colonel, like ordered, I brought the new cadet Marc Bradley to your office." The soldier said and got a nod from the woman, who replied.

"Good, you are dismissed sergeant, go back to your unit." The Marine saluted again, as he left the room and closed the door after him, leaving Marc alone with her. The colonel had an aura of authority around her, making it clear to Marc that she was not to be messed with.

"Welcome to Korbulo, Mister Bradley." She didn't smile while giving him her hand and Marc shook it in return, before she told him to take a seat.

"Mister Bradley, you are surely aware why I wanted you to be at my office first, before I send you to your new comrades. Korbulo is normally an academy for children of UNSC staff and flag officers, which you are not. But both staff sergeant Johnson and more importantly vice-admiral Cole spoke in your favor and allowed you this opportunity. I'm well aware why, you were a member of the Harvest militia and you are one of the survivors from the first contact with the Citadel species. This makes you some sort of celebrity, but let me be clear, there will be no special treatment here." She didn't talk around topic and directly came to the point and Marc answered with a short "Of course sir." He had learned that Marines didn't like too much talking.

"Good. Don't worry you won't have to specially proof yourself, we will demand the same from you, what we demand from all other cadets. But just a little warning. The teachers do not care that you are from an outer colony and that your family served in the CMA for several generations, but be warned that the other cadets will eventually find out about that and they might not react neutral like me." Marc swallowed, he had not really thought about that. UNSC and CMA were rivals and sometimes nearly enemies. Every other cadet was most likely born with the UNSC in their blood, while he was literally born into a CMA clan, grandpas reaction to him joining the UNSC backed militia had already been enough.

"Still, we have high expectations in you. The reports about your performance were pretty good, considering your limited training, so don't disappoint me." A minimal smile was now on her face and Marc replied with a sharp "Yes Sir." Before she send him to the armory, where he should get his equipment.

The academies uniform we tight fight clothes, school uniforms and not a BDU like he had worn during his short trip to the Citadel. All clothes he got were UNSC and CAMS branded, except for the underpants, so wearing them while being home was out of question and he was done after an hour.

A sergeant lead him to his quarters, a small room with two beds, two desk, two chairs, two lockers and two computer terminals. The other bed was still empty, Marc was early, the other new cadets would come in three days, so he had some time to get used to the academy. He still wasn't an official cadet, since the new year hadn't started by now, so he still wore his civilian clothes, while the school uniform was in the locker, accurately folded, of course.

There wasn't much he could do here as a civilian, except for eating and sport, which he did, mostly running around the academy building. Koslinski and his comrades had told him that being in good shape was essential to being a Marine and made most things much easier, not being the one the Drill Sergeant have to force into shape was also always good. At the first night, he sent a short video message to Harvest, telling his family that he was alright, but it would take days for message to reach the planet and then it would take days for the answer to return to him, so he couldn't expect an answer for at least two weeks.

He avoided the older students, some had mumbled some rather rude words when they passed him and he didn't want to risk meeting them, without a Marine or teacher present, at least not alone. Still, on his third day, he couldn't avoid being caught alone, without any supervising soldiers, inside the showers. Marc had chosen his timing badly, so he was caught off guard, as a group of older cadets entered the room and directly noticed him.

"Hey, you're one of the new freshman, right ?" one of them asked him, they didn't seem to be aggressive towards him, either they didn't knew or care.  
"Yeah, came here a few days ago, with an early ship." Marc replied, he was a bit scared, but thankfully they were old enough to not care about the fact that they were all completely naked.

"Oh you're that freshman." Ok Marc had been stupid to be honest because now they surely knew who he was, unless they were completely stupid.

"Let's greet you colie properly." The leader of the small group said with a wide grin and for a second Marc thought about simply charging out of the showers, strip naked and hoping to lock himself inside his room, but they blocked that possible exit.

They slowly surrounded him now and Marc tried to evade them, by slowly going backwards, but after a few steps his back was pressed against the wall.

The first punch came from the left side, but thanks to some sparring with the Marines, he was fast enough to duck under it and the fist only hit the wall, creating a cracking noise. Marc tried to take the offensive and charged at their leader now, who was surprised by this for a second and got thrown to the ground by Marc, but took him with him.

Marc didn't got back on his feet fast enough and a kick threw him of the leader and forced all air out of lungs and as he tried to stand up, one of the attackers restrained him and held him back, while the leader came back on his feet.

"Look at that, we got a little rebel here. At least you fight like these dirty terrorists." Marc struggled against the grip that held him back, his family had a proud CMA legacy and one of his great uncles had been killed by rebels.

"What's going on here. Let him go you idiots ! " for a second Marc had hoped that a teacher had for some reason entered the showers, but it was just two other cadets, who tried to help him.

"Come on Lasky. That guys a good dam colie and probably even an Innie. Let's beat that out of him." The leader said, but Lasky and his companion didn't seem to be satisfied, since they pushed the others away from Marc.

"He'll surely become an Innie if assholes like you treat him like that." Lasky signaled Marc to put on some clothes and follow them and he followed happily, but not without a little bit of gloating.

"You should probably let a medic look at your hand." Marc told the guy, who had punched the wall and who still sat on the ground holding his hurt hand. Lasky and his friends, also just wearing towels lead Marc to Laskys nearby quarter, since they didn't want redress on the hallway.

" So you're that militia guy from Harvest ?" Lasky finally asked him, after they were all dressed again, Lasky and the other cadet in Corbulo clothes and Marc still in his civilian clothes.

"Name's Marc Bradley and yes, I am that 'militia guy' from Harvest." Marc replied, slightly annoyed, he had already feared that people would call him that.

"Well, that's cool. Can you tell us something about the aliens ? We only get censored news hear, so we know nothing, except that something happened and you were part of it. I'm John, John Sheppard, by the way." Sheppard now asked and introduced himself and Lasky directly followed his example.

"Tom, Thomas Lasky. We both just ended our first year. But come on, how are these aliens, there are some rumors that some of them are smoking hot." Ok, Marc had not expected such a greeting, but he wouldn't complain, people actually being nice to him and wanting to know about the aliens, that was good.

" Those aren't rumors, they're facts.. One species, the Asari, they're all females and most of them are hot, if you can ignore the blue skin and tentacle hair, they almost look like humans." Both lasky and Sheppard listened to his explanation and Marc was pretty sure that they were now trying imagine the Asari.

"Tentacles like in these Japanese anime porn or harmless?" John now asked and Marc had to admit that he had never thought about it like that.

"No, short tentacles, like we have hair on our head and I never saw those tentacles move. But the other alien species. The Turians, hard assholes, look like the love child of a dinosaur and a bird with some sort of natural armor plates covering their face, but their tough soldiers. Salarians, a bit smaller, look a bit like lizards and the Batarians, humanoid but their face and head remind me of bats, oh and they have fours eyes.

But probably the coolest aliens were the Krogans, giant, like 9 feet tall, bipedal, actual, walking, tank-like T-rex."

Their conversation went on for about an hour, as Marc kept on telling them more about the aliens, about the immense size of the Citadel, how sergeant Johnson arm wrestled a Krogan and a few more things. As Lasky and Sheppard went to have a shower, Marc made it back to his own quarter and after a short greeting with his new cabin-partner Sam, he went to sleep quickly.

The next day was waking up at 0545, thanks to the voice of a drill sergeant. They wouldn't have to wake up like this all the time, but it was meant to get them used to it. The advices from the Marines again payed off, Marc had already prepared his clothes and Sam had followed his example, so they were dressed and ready in time, with no problems. The whole hallway was made up of cabins for the new cadets and at 0600,in front of every single one, two cadets stood at the ready.

"Listen up cadets. I am staff sergeant Ranjid, but you will only call me sir or staff sergeant sir, depending on what I told you to call me. You have until 0620 to get yourself clean and have a little shit, now teeth brushing, you can do that after breakfast. At 0620 I will lead you to the canteen, anybody who's not ready by then, won't get any breakfast. Execution !" the NCO barked and over thirty cadets hurried to the bathrooms and toilets to get ready. Cleaning and a morning dumb were not that hard to do in twenty minutes, so even the slowest cadet made it in time. Again the Sergeant addressed them, not screaming, but with a sharp and loud voice

"Alright, I will bring to the canteen now. All recruits will be back here at 0700 and if I see only one glint of food on your teeth, then my god be with you."

The breakfast was alright, not ship rations, simple food and at 0700 everybody was back in the hallway. Marc had some time to talk with Sam, who was alright, he had already heard about Marcs background, but didn't care and just like Shepard and Lasky, the only thing in Marcs past he was really interested in were the aliens of the Citadel.

"Attention cadets. I haven't given you a reason to speak until now, because I didn't want to smell the decay in your unwashed mouths, but let me say something. Every sentence you direct at me will start with Sir and end with Sir, is that clear ?" the cadets knew what he wanted from them, so they nearly screamed back "Sir, yes, Sir !".

"Am I in kinder-garden or what is this ? Could sworn that I heard some little kids in the distance. I asked a question, what is your answer ?!" The sergeant now nearly screamed himself and the cadets now gave everything they had, making their lungs hurt and the windows shake "SIR, YES, SIR !" a small smile was now the staff sergeant Ranjids slightly brown face as he replied

"Well, sounded like some seniors with bad asthma, but we'll get that right." The moment he had finished, colonel Mehaffey entered the hallway and Marc was sure that she had waited at the door, until the staff sergeant had been done.

"Officer present." The NCO told and saluted the staff officer, which the cadets imitated, they were now all officially soldiers, so just like they had done with Sergeant, they would of course have to greet a staff officer properly.

"Stand comfortably, cadets." The colonel ordered them and after a few moments of inspecting the from a far, she went on.

" Well, at least you already now how to salute, that is a start. I officially welcome you to the Corbulo Naval Academy of Military Science, I am colonel Mehaffey and I will be one of your teachers here. But don't be mistaken, this may be a academy, but first in for most this is a military installation and you will both act and be treated like soldiers at any time.

We will form you into the future generation of leaders, but right now you are simply cadets. Let me make myself clear, you get an excellent chance here, a chance many could only dream of and I have no problem kicking you out if you don't use it. But for now, welcome.

staff sergeant Ranjid will take care of your training for the first three months, he will teach you the basic skills you need to be soldiers. 33 months of education will then follow and if you manage to pass every test, you will be send to special training facilities, depending on which branch of the UNSC we see fitting."

None of the recruits dared to move during the colonels short speech, she still had her aura of authority and nobody wanted to challenge her words.

" Do not disappoint me cadets and we will see each other again in three months." Marc could swear that her eyes rested on him for a moment, but it could also be his imagination, because Mehaffey now left them with staff sergeant Ranjid, again.

The next four weeks could be described as the basic "boot camp" something Marc already knew from the militia, only that his training in the militia had been much more shorter and less in depth.

Every morning they started with a one hour PT run and physical training, so after a week everybody had learned to preserve their appetite for the lunch. After lunch at 1130, dry weapons drill followed, hours and hours of repeating the same moves and following the same commands, while they took apart and put together training MA5s. At the evening they had lessons in basic military code of conduct and lessons in basic infantry lessons and everybody who dared to even yawn during these lessons earned himself 10 minutes of fresh air, 10 minutes during which they had to run around the whole academy, together with a Corporal. And it was always the same corporal, so it only took two yawns to bring him into a very bad mood.

At the beginning of the fifth week, something special happened, for the first time they were given an actual combat BDU, or a training BDU similar to an actual combat version and guns, real guns, but they were only loaded with stun rounds.

"These stun rounds are constructed to simulate an actual round of 7,62mm ammo. The same kickback and the same ballistic characteristics as a real bullet. But these things are not lethal, they are still nothing to joke about, they knock you down, even if they hit armor and leave very ugly and painful bruises on unprotected skin and flesh. You will only fire these while you are at the academy, if you are ordered to, and during some lessons, you can even shoot these at your fellow cadets. But now we will test how well you can actually handle these little guys and maybe, if you're good, one day you'll might get a battle rifle."

Marc had no problem with the MA5, he had fired several hundred actual shoots during his militia training and a few hundred more with a battle rifle, so he both knew how to handle the gun and how not to, like some of his fellow cadets did. He had already told Sam how to do it properly and how to avoid dumb mistakes. Marc and Sam had become friends during the last weeks, Sam didn't really care about Marc being from Harvest and having a CMA background, his dad was a UNSC Army major in garrison on one of the smaller Inner Colonies and had had cooperated with the CMA several times before. They spend much of their free time together, sometimes joined by Lasky, Sheppard and one or two of Laskys other friends, doing sports or watching what news they could get out of the network. The academy and many of the people were much less bad than Marc had expected or had been warned, many didn't care about his background, none of the instructors and teachers did at least, while some cadets avoided Marc, but those who were aggressive didn't do anything, mainly because Marc made sure that they could never catch him alone.

He now leveled his gun at the target, slow and steady breaths, just like he had trained, he took aim and fire, and again fire. Three short, precise burst, just like he had been ordered. One in each side of the upper torso and one right in the head.

Staff sergeant Ranjid gave him a slightly impressed nod, as he said "Not bad cadet, nearly perfect score. Keep up the good work and maybe we can make a marksman out of you." He also got some acknowledging back pats and whistles from the other cadets and Marc was a little bit proud he had to admit, the shooting range was surely his favorite part of the training.

At the beginning of the seventh week, training changed again. Until then all physical training had been in sports gear, now they had to wear their actual combat BDU, not just on the shooting range.

The training were now no rounds around the training field anymore, but at the very least five miles of marching through the wilderness surrounding the academy, in march formation and with at least five miles per hour, if the drill sergeant felt like treating them nicely.

During orientation training, something happened which Marc had not expected, the drill sergeant let them walk on their own and he and Sam had ended up in one group with some the guys, who thought that a boy from Harvest had no place here and their unofficial leader was Hugh, Mike Hugh a guys at least a head larger than Marc and two times as wide, son of a ODST major and seemed to have lost half a pound of brain mass for each pound of muscles he had.

"No wonder you like this place, Innie. There's nothing but forest on the pills of shit you call colonies." Marc had to grin a little about this dumbness, he had seen pictures of Harvest and outside of the big cities that planet looked even worse than Harvest.

"You know Hugh, the outer colonies may be wild, but at least that makes sure that people like you won't come there." Marc replied, as he walked past the giant and accidently stepped on his boot, but due to the armor it wouldn't cause any pain, which wasn't his intention. Hugh now tried to go after him, but after his first step he directly fell and then again and again. His friends tried to help him, but since their brain mass was comparable to Hughs, they didn't figure out what Marc had done.

Most of the cadets found the situation immensely funny, Hugh and his thugs weren't popular or good students, so Marc earned a few back pats for this.

"What was that, you did something, right ?" Sam asked Marc this evening, after they had meet with Sheppard and Lasky and had made sure that nobody else was listening.

"It's an old newbie trick the Marines thought me during my travel to the Citadel. If you hit them right, the armor plates of a boot will jam up and make it impossible to walk. There is a way to open them again, but if you don't know how, it's nearly impossible to do. I'll teach it to you next time we have an orientation march." Marcs friends now started to laugh, the picture had been beautiful, seeing how Hughs had stumbled the whole way back to the Academy had been pure gold. But their laughter stopped as Staff Sergeant Ranjid approached them.

"Cadet Bradley. colonel Mehaffey wants to talk to you, follow me." This wasn't a good sign, a cadet being called into her office always meant that something was wrong, especially at this time of day. But at least, Marc thought, as the NCO lead him to the office, if Hughs whined about Marc, than he would most likely be even more the joke figure of the whole platoon for the next 34 months.

The colonel ordered Marc to sit down after he had saluted her and then let him sit in the chair for a few minutes, while she still filled out some paper work and idea that it might be the papers necessary to kick him out raced through his mind.

"Cadet Bradley, there is something you have to explain to me. I have a cadet, with a foot that looks like a Warthog drove over it in the med bay and who claims that it is your fault, that you did something to his boot, that made it nearly impossible for him to walk. Several of your fellow cadets described it as 'the best unintentional slapstick they had ever seen'. Do you know anything about that ?" Marc tried to control himself, of course he knew it and hurting or at least helping to make a comrade hurt, was more than enough to kick him out, why hadn't he thought about that ?

"No sir, I have no idea what happened. " Marc was no good liar, but he did his best, which still didn't seem to be enough.

"So you didn't step on cadet Hughs boot on purpose, to cause its armor plates to jam, making it impossible for him to properly continue the march ?" why hadn't he thought about that, of course the drill sergeants and the colonel were Marines too, they would recognize that trick.

"No sir. I stepped on his boot by accident, it wasn't on purpose. I had no idea that something like this could happened." He lied again, still as bad as before.

"Alright, that should be everything." The colonel now simply replied to his surprise and then pressed a button on her desk and leaned back into her chair.

"By protocol all interviews about possible misconduct must be recorded. I just deactivated the camera, cadet. Relax, nothing is gonna happen to you." At first Marc couldn't believe what he was hearing and thought that they might be trying to admit it, but then he realized, that if they wanted to kick him out.

"Of course I know this little trick you played. I did it myself with the new privates, when I was still serving in a combat unit. But of course a cadet like you can impossibly know something that, so there won't be any consequences. I already talked with your other comrades and I am well aware of the situation, so don't worry, this also won't have any informal consequences for you." Now Marc finally relaxed, these were the words he had waited for and the colonel went on

"Until now you have been one of the best cadets in your platoon, especially your skills with a gun are very good and that little incident shows me that you have some guts and that you know how to use your brain. Just make sure that it won't end with a foot swollen to elephant size next time, even if it is deserved. And keep this informal conversation between the two of us. Dismissed." Sam and the others were already waiting for Marc, but just like the colonel had told him, he only told them the official part and the fact that he would go free and with no problems.

The last weeks of their basic training flew by fast, the last part of it was a twenty miles orientation march, with an unexpected ambush by the older students platoons. They were of course not supposed to actually all 'survive' the attack, but his platoon made a good job, except for Hugh and his fellows, who tried to charge the enemy position without cover or covering fire and got each hit by at least half a magazine of stun rounds. Marc even scored several hits on the attackers and later that day, after they had officially passed the first part of the academy and celebrated, he could have sworn that Sheppard had a bruise at exactly the same spot where he had hit one of the masked attackers.

It was Friday night and as a little bonus for their mostly good results, Marcs platoon had both gotten the whole weekend free and been allowed to have a little party, except for Hugh and his friends, who were still knocked out and lay in the med bay. It was already nearly midnight and Sheppard and Lasky were already about to leave, since they still had to wake up early the next day and Sam had disappeared into a corner with May, one of their fellow cadets, as another cadet stormed into their little party location, completely punt up and breathing heavily. He turned on all the lights, turned off the music and searched for the controls of the rooms projector and after a few seconds and many complaints about what his problem was, a news cast appeared on one of the walls.

"We have a conformation, there had been another alien contact on at Harvest. Information is still limited and neither the CMA nor the UNSC have given an official statement. All we know is that another alien species, most likely not a member of the Citadel , has come to Harvest. We can't say anything for sure, but what we have indicates a hostile first contact." The whole room turned silent and after a few moments several pairs of eyes turned towards Marc. This couldn't be happening.

Chapter 2

End

 **Citadel Codex : Entry #20093101**

Human military, facts and numbers :

The human military is rather strange, compared to what is known throughout Citadel space and these strange specification have lead to more than one unintentional incident of violence.

Human military is literally divided in two different armies. One the better known UNSC is the military responsible with the defense of the Inner Colonies, humanities core worlds.

Side note: The UNSC still outlaws any alien ship or alien leaving Harvest and visiting other human planets.

The UNSC, the United Nations Space Command, normally has better and more equipment than its cousin the CMA, they consider themselves an elite force and field an extensive arsenal, ranging from oversized pistols to massive carriers, with about two times the lengths of the largest dreadnought built by the turians. UNSC is divided in the following branches: Navy, Marines, ONI, Army, Air force.

Army and air force are the less prominent parts of the UNSC, while ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence is their intelligence service.

The CMA, the Colonial Military Administration, is the military responsible for the defense and security of the outer colonies.

Note: Due to an agreement between UNSC and CMA, Harvest is, with the exception of a token CMA force, under UNSC control.

CMAs founding had been slashed after several scandals about involvement of CMA officers in rebels cells throughout the last decades, but since the first contact with the Citadel, the CMA seems to have had a little comeback. CMA ships are normally older models, given to them by the UNSC, since the CMA and with it the Outer Colonies, have only very few dry docks and shipyards.

Still, the CMA is a force made up of soldiers, who are very keen on not being mistaken for UNSC soldiers. The CMA is divided into Navy and Marines and has a small intelligence service, the CIO.

Be sure not to confuse CMA and UNSC soldiers, always look which brand they wear, to avoid any potential problems.

Human naval strength during first contact was around 2000 ships, both UNSC and CMA fleets combined , with large numbers of dreadnoughts, which they classify as cruisers, and large carriers. News indicate that there has been massive increase in ship building in human space, so these numbers should considered not up to date soon.

While this places them far below the Turians in terms of ship numbers and around the same level as the Salarians, this can be misleading, considering the large number of dreadnoughts they use and the differences in human and Citadel tech.

About 2 % of humanity currently serves in its different armed forces, a quote far below that of the Turians and only by 0,05 % above the Salarians.

So while humanities military is impressive on its own, compared to the combined might of the Citadel they are just an emerging middle power.

* * *

Well Chapter 2 done, basic training done, another first contact, not completly done.

About the Codex, human fleet size around 2000 seems good, they are spread thing, meant to put down small rebellions not fight massive invading fleet, but like it's written, UNSC is spinning up production, massivly. And just another comment on the codex. This is literally all the Citadel knows about human military at this point, they have no idea how modern UNSC ships like Marathon-cruisers or Paris-frigates trade against Citadel tech, so no mention of thick armour, because the poor CMA ships didn't have that much.

Also hey, Lasky and Sheppard, heard that names before, right ? No Sam is not based on any character from any other Sci-Fi universe. Let's see how the story goes on, just a warning, at least three more chapter of academy incoming.

But for now tobiisagoodboy94 out.


	4. Chapter 3: Second First Contact

tobiisagoodboy94 here again. Well here comes the next chapter, more negotiations and academy time, so have fun.

* * *

Halo

Colonial War

Chapter 3

„Hostiles on board, I repeat, hostile on board !" the voice rang through the Everests hallways, as marines ran to their posts. Nobody had expected this, at first everything had seemed alright, these new aliens, coming in some sort of rounded, purple ship, had been passive and stayed out of weapon reach. With basic signs they had established a sort of truce, these aliens appeared to be searching for something, but had agreed to not approach the colony or fleet, at least that what Command had thought.

Then, out of nowhere, a smaller ship, some sort of dropship had left the larger one and headed straight for the Everest. At first they believed it could have been a diplomatic envoy, but when it didn't react to hailing or warning shoots, it was already too late. It raced for the Everest, broke through its close defense weapon grind and rammed right into one of its open hangar bays. Then chaos ensured, aliens, two species, one large and ape like and one small and with high pitched voices, had jumped out of the damaged craft and opened fire with some kind of energy weapon, overwhelming what personal there was in the hangar.

"What the fuck !" screamed one of the Marines defending the hallways, as one of the small aliens charged at his squads position. Several hits didn't stop him and then he detonated two explosives, some sort of plasma charge, once he reached the humans, wiping out the whole squad.

The larger aliens cared even less about getting hit, they had some sort of large spike rifle, which fired large blades, which cut through armor like butter. These 'brutes' stormed through the hallway, not caring about gun fire, but also not about the two small, egg shaped metal object that rolled right towards them and then detonated. The aliens were thrown of their feet, limbs and blood flew through the halls and the charge of the large aliens was done. Half of them still weren't dead, but wounded and missing limbs, so the Marine restrained them and at least tried to prevent their alien prisoners from bleeding to death, at least a little bit.

The little guys now completely lost it and panicked, running around and into each other and some of the Marines even felt bad as they mowed down the little guys. All in all 6 'Brutes', how the Marines had dubbed them and 24 'Grunts', the little guys, had entered the ship. They had killed 20 Marines and 30 personal in the hangar, wounding 40 more. 3 Brutes and all Grunts were now dead and three Brutes were captured, just like their ship and weapons.

Already during the battle on board, Cole had ordered the Everest and three additional destroyers to approach the alien ship, with MAC guns charged and Archers pods hot and, most importantly, several pelicans filled with ODSTs, not their preferred method of transport but they had to accept it.

The plan was simply, demand the ship to stand down or take out its engines and guns and board it.

Sadly, the ship reacted to the first option, by opening fire, with some sort of plasma gun, which burned through the armor of one poor destroyer.

"All Archer pods fire, take out any weapon and engine we can spot." On Coles order, the four ships unleashed a display of fire power only rivaled by a nuke. Hundreds of high yield anti-ship missiles raced towards the alien ship, which in return fired at the same destroyer again.

"The Garons heavily damaged, a complete hull breach on nearly all decks." Coles XO reported, but the Vice-Admiral was focused on the rockets, which had reached their targets. But they didn't impact on the ship, at least most of them were stopped by some sort of shielding, but which in the end failed against the sheer mass of rockets, so some made it through. Both the weapons and engines seemed to be disabled, since no more fire came from the ship and its engines had died down.

"Send in the ODSTs, tell them to prepare for possible combat operation in low gravity and atmosphere. There are several penetrations in the ships hull they can use to enter. I want that ship intact and in our hands in the next two hours." Cole ordered and only a second later, three pelicans left one of the Everests intact hangars. The dropship raced with a speed nearly matching that of the rockets towards their destination, which seemed to have complete power failure. They had equipped their armor, which was already fit for operation in low atmosphere, with additional oxygen tanks, enough for four hours, plus additional oxygen reserves inside the pelican.

"Alright ODSTs, this is a literal blind jump, minimal intel, we don't know how many aliens are in that ship, how heavy they are armed or what damage the Archer missiles did. So be prepared for everything and try not to destroy anything that could be valuable to us." The lieutenant told his soldiers, as they mentally prepared themselves for the mission.

They were the best, humanities elite soldiers, each and every single one of them had had at least half a dozen combat mission, still this mission made them nervous. These aliens had suicide charged the Marines on the Everest, had run through gunfire like it was nothing and some of them had survived a grenade detonation right next to them.

Neither shields nor guns stopped the Pelicans, as they approached several openings in the whole, on opening for each group. Inside there were no aliens at first, at least no alive ones, only some bloated dead bodies, no atmosphere was never healthy for life forms, no matter how ugly. There were new bodies, insect like, with wings, so three alien species.

"Hostiles !" one of the Marines screamed, as they passed a bulkhead and were directly greeted by green plasma. One ODSTs got hit by several shots and went down directly, not even properly realizing what had hit him. The others returned fire, the insect aliens fired at them with some sort of pistol, together with some of the 'Grunts'. But after the first shock, the ODSTs quickly gained an upper hand, these aliens were no good fighters, their aim was bad, while the ODSTs always hit their target.

They quickly advanced, towards the bridge and resistance became less and less, the aliens seemed to have depleted most of their troops, after over one hundred of them had been killed.

This changed, once they reached the bridge, where six more 'Brutes' awaited them, one of them wielding some sort of hammer, which he directly used to smash the poor ODST that came in first.

The fire fight was short and thousands of SMG and Assault rifle bullets perforated the aliens, but even after that the alien wielding the hammer still drew breath, so they restrained him and kept him alive.

This was the story that had been racing across the networks, both human and Citadel for the last three months. All ODSTs had been awarded with bravery medals, while HIGH COM wasn't sure if they had to praise Cole for the fact that he had taken an alien ship and demote him for letting an alien dropship crash into the Everest.

With Citadel help, it had taken two month to develop translation software for these aliens, but that hadn't been much useful, since all the aliens said were insults, calling them heathens and saying that their gods would burn them all.

They called themselves the "Covenant", which they claimed was a massive alliance of aliens, which all worshipped some sort of ancient aliens, which had died out ages ago. What wasn't spread across the network was information an UNSC AI had gotten out of the ships computers. The ship had been classified as a small cruiser, with minimum armament and shields, which indicated very bad things, so bad that the UNSC had even agreed to hand some of the plasma weapons to the Citadel, so they could develop counter measures, in case these Covenant decided to come.

But Marc couldn't have cared less about this, even if he had known it, since he was too busy getting back on track in school. The weeks following the first news about the Harvest incident had been horrible for him and his performance in the academy, he had just become better after it became clear that there had been no civilian casualties. Now he spend what little free time he had, sitting in his room, learning what he hadn't listened to during the lessons. Sam was busy with his new girlfriend May, with who he spend most of his free time, since Marc at the moment was not really useful for anything, while Lasky and Shepard dropped by from time to time, giving him tips on what to focus on.

The pile of books only got smaller very slowly, it was unbelievable what you could miss, if you didn't listen properly for just four weeks.

Their whole training, or better education in the academy had changed, after the basic training was done. They still had physical training in combat gear and field and weapons training, but now the focus was more on lessons. Lessons in military history, theory and tactics, lessons about the UNSCs structure, colonial history, sometimes even politics and what little knowledge we had gathered about the Citadel species military.

They also had regular cryo training, where they would be put into cryo-tubes for several hours, to prepare the body for potential months on ice. Marc didn't like these at all, cryo-sleep wasn't refreshing or regenerative, it was more like blacking out. At least he didn't have any physical problems, like Lasky used to have. He had told them about his problems at first, about his burns and very painful rashes, which had left a few scars on him and had nearly caused him to get kicked out, additional to the fact the he was still stubborn from time to time.

Sheppard was less rebellious that Lasky, a ladies man, but also kind and intelligent, the complete opposite of their old 'friend' Hugh, even though by now every female cadet in the academy was aware of his antics.

If one didn't know, nobody could have told you that Sam was in a military academy. He was calm and soft spoken, with a sense for philosophy, but also an incredible sharp mind.

Marc was somewhere between Lasky and Sheppard, not a ladies man like John or rebellious like Thomas, but he always knew a good return, was not afraid to fight, but also had a sense for when to run as fast as he could.

Sam always scored nearly perfect in exams, while Sheppard could carry the whole squads equipment over twenty miles, without even losing his breath. Lasky always found a way to get himself and his squad out of bad situation and well Marc, Marc was the best marksman of his year, not a sniper, since he lacked patience for that, but very good at handling the Assault rifle, even though he missed the prototype battle rifle he had been allowed to use during his time in the militia. Strange they had never told him why a militia on a remote place like Harvest would get such a expensive prototype, well maybe he could ask Sergeant Johnson one day, if they met again.

Now while Marc was feeling lonely and tried desperately to keep up with his workload, the UEG ambassadors on the Citadel has had the best day since he had come to this alien station. The negotiation during the first three months had been horrible, diplomacy with only two involved factions was hard enough, but here he sat, trying to negotiate a treaty with three different species and a council which acted like it was an independent faction was a nightmare.

The turians didn't really care about economics, they would sign everything which didn't cause their Volus friends to immediately die of a heart attack, they were even rather neutral to the AI problem. But on the matter of fleet sizes they were stubborn, they at least wanted to cap the human navy at its current strength, something that made UNSC and CMA run around in circles and warm up the nuclear silos.

Talking about nukes, the Asari were horrified by the fact how much human ships relied on nuclear weapons and wouldn't sign anything, if humanity didn't agree to at least limit its nuclear arsenal, and they didn't even knew that there was planning for an actual planet buster bomb in HIGH COM. They also didn't like AIs, wanted unlimited trade and the possibility for Citadel ships, including the Councils military units, to go to any human colony they want, which was something even the rather peaceful civilian government would have nearly answered with giving up on negotiation and simply put thousands of nuclear mines in front of the Relay.

The Salarians were actually the easiest to handle, they seemed a bit like a fish out of water to be honest. They were used to knowing everything about their negotiation partners, thanks to their excellent STG, but hacking AI protected computers was suicidal and classical information gathering was no option. So they were relatively passive and modest, only demanding some economic rights and some limits , concerning the usage of high yield nuclear weapons.

This all had changed with the Covenant attack, a third, seemingly aggressive and far more advanced faction was a very good reason not to focus on details while negotiating with a potential ally.

Ambassador Ugabe now watched out of his windows office, it wasn't in the center of the presidium, but he had a nice overview offer the whole area. The Citadel seemed almost surreal to humans, especially military veterans. Back home humanity could hardly stay off each others throat, there had five terrorist attacks in the outer colonies in the month since first contact and that was already considered a peaceful phase.

Here, over half a dozen different races, completely different cultures and people live side by side in relative harmony. Religious races like the Hanar with authoritarian militarist like the Turians and what ever the hell the Elcor were.

A small flow of trade, almost entirely cultural goods like music and movies, had already started between humanity and the aliens, a large part off which was porn, since many humans, both male and female, were very 'excited' about the idea of Asaris.

Funny enough, the Salarians loved the by now nearly 300 titles strong James Bond series and not even the new ones, mostly the first few movies with Sean Connery, while the Turians loved movies about ancient Rome and for a strange reason everything related to Hitler. Still direct contacts between humans and aliens were few, only limited to the small human delegation on the Citadel and the trading on Harvest, but he had heard that some Asari companies already planned to open stores on human colonies.

It was still the beginning, a very slow process and he hated the idea that some stupid alien diplomats could ruin this unique chance by demanding something that could be considered a declaration of war back home. Both sides could learn so much from one another, both in terms of culture and technology, was it really worth risking over the question how large a nuke should be or if AIs will turn against us ?

Well, these questions had evaporated with the Covenant attack, at least when it came to the Salarians and the Turians.

"There had been rumors in the Terminus systems, rumors about unknown, gigantic space ships, which attacked anything they found and which used energy weapons. I already mobilized all available STG teams and Specters and their first reports are not really reassuring." The salarian councilor explained, it was now two hours later and they had continued the negotiations, without any public eyes watching them.

"What we got out of the captives matches this, it seems that the 'Covenant', what or whoever they actually are, are preparing for an invasion. They have been preparing for some time already and from what we gathered, their technology is superior to ours in every aspect. We were able to enter the ships data banks and they indicate that the 'Elites', how the 'Brutes' called them, had taken away most weapons and shields from the captured vessel. Still it nearly took out one of our destroyers. End even if it was fully equipped, judging from what we have found, they must have far, far bigger things in storage, ships which make Valiant-class cruiser look a toy." Ugabe agreed and went on

"We don't know when or where they will attack, but we agree that they pose a substantial threat to each of us, right ?" the Turian and Salarian councilor agreed with every word he said, as they were speaking the Turians alone had started construction on a dozen new dreadnoughts and were testing some sort of new mass driver, which costed more money than any present person could ever imagine and made the Volus cry in happiness, since they manufactured them.

"This is ridiculous and goes against anything the Citadel stands for. How can you all agree to prepare for a galactic war, if we didn't even try diplomacy. Maybe this was a misunderstanding, maybe the captain of that ship was just an extremist, maybe there is still a chance for peace." Tevos plead, had they all gone mad, did they want a new Rachni war, did they want to send billions to their death ?

"You can attempt to, like we did. We used the ship communication system, after an AI had triple checked that it was working properly, and tried to contact the Covenant. All we got were some strange mumbling, some insults and after that nothing but silence." Ugabe replied, did Tevos really not believe them, well she did flinch when he mentioned the AI, which slowly became annoying, not only for him.

"What about a compromise, STG and Specters will be ordered to attempt peaceful communication with any Covenant they might find and the UEG will further attempt to contact them. At the same time we prepare for the they do turn out to be peaceful and everything was just a misunderstanding, the Asari will surely never make us forget how we burned trillions of credits out of paranoia." The salarian councilor offered, but all he got from Tevos was an annoyed grunt.

"I still can't believe that you would throw away our proud legacy of diplomacy, because of this. I leave now, it's not like I'm an officer. I have to talk with the Matriachs, a good day." Tevos now took her goodbye and once she had left the room, the three remaining persons went on.

" We have sized a number of plasma weapons during the Harvest incident, several hundred to be precise. We will hand some of them over to your governments, so you can develop new barriers, which can stop those energy weapons." Ugabe went on, they needed each other so sharing what little they had seemed like a good idea.

"Yes, very good. Replicating Covenant technology, even if we have intact samples, will be difficult, since it is so different from ours, even more for us than for you. The least we can do is preparing our defenses against their weapons." The turian councilors now finally also said something, as their negotiations went on. Without the Asari, it went far more smoothly, mostly because they all agreed on the central problems and could ignore minor details.

He had sympathy for Tevos and her point of view, her desire for peace and stability, but right now it was misplaced. They couldn't just wait for this threat to come at them, while hoping that everything would go well. If the Covenant turned out to be peaceful, great, then all they had done was burning trillions of credits, which was much more harmless than seeing billions off people burn, because nobody was prepared.

Problem was, the Asari had the most influence, they owned the largest media outlets and companies, they were the cultural icons everybody in Citadel space followed and they would sure as hell mobilize all of this influence against any increased military spending and agreement they would reach.

But far away from the Asaris cultural reach and influence, Marc was still busy with his work schedule at the academy, at least he had caught up to the lessons again, but the work load was a lot.

They had several lectures a week, physical training, maneuver training and cryo pod training, which were pretty much three lost hours at least once a week.

So, what free time they had was either used learning or recovering from another 15 miles march, which had been followed by a two hour maneuver and the march back. It was exhausting, it was dulling from time to time and sometimes it felt like his feet would fall of the moment he stopped, still Marc was happy, he had his friends, during the day mostly Sam, in the evening, if time allowed, also Shepard and Lasky and his bunch and felt a sense of purpose. Even the fact that both Sam and Lasky now had girlfriends, who took most of their attention, while Shepard ran after anything that even remotely looked like a girl, and he was solo, couldn't cloud his mood.

First year quickly came to an end, faster than he had expected, suddenly the exams were there and without a warning, except for the constant remainder Mehaffey had given them every day, for the last two months, Marc was sitting in front of a piece of paper and scribbled down what his brain had held together. It was old school, but some things always stayed the same.

The following oral exams were just as annoying, he had to give a short talk on a topic, which he had forgot the moment he left the room, and then answer two dozen questions from the teachers, but all in all it didn't seem too bad.

Field exams on the other side were his favorite and most likely his best, every cadet had to lead a four men team of second year cadets through a simulated fire fight. Reach the objective and survive as long as possible against nearly impossible odds was the scenario and Marcs team made it to the objective and after the retreat was blocked, lay down an ambush, which resulted in mutual destruction.

None of the teachers gave even the hint of an emotion during the whole exams, but at least his 2nd year squaddies assured him that he had fared pretty well.

Only two days after the field exam, everybody got their grades and a stone fell of Marcs heart, he had passed, with good grades. Oral exam was decent, written exam was acceptable and in the field exam he was the best of his year, plus an extra point for good marksmanship. All in all, a good result, just like Sam, who was just as relieved as his buddy.

"Let's see what you got Sam. Excellent oral exam, respect, excellent written test and decent field exam. Well yours was kinds short since the third year squads did focus on your squad away right at the beginning." Marc commented, while Sam simply relaxed on his chair now, they had made it, they were through the first year, with pretty good grades.

May, Sams girlfriend, now approached both off them, excited and gave a long kiss to Sam, once he told her that he had passed, but then she brought news, which made Marcs mood nearly as good as Sams.

"Hugh and his thugs have fallen through. Completely failed the oral and written exams." She didn't need to say anything about Hughs field exam, he had lead his team in an ambush, that had been so obvious, that even the team which laid it got scolded for it.

"Well, he'll end up in the ODSTs anyway, his dead will most likely force him to become an NCO and will push him through it. Would be funny if he ended up under Shepards command one day, right ?" Lasky now joined into the conversation, Shepard had had bad luck and had ended up Hughs command, so he was still in the med station, since one lucky shoot had given him a concussion.

"Well, let's hope none of us ever ends up on a bucket commanded by you. Jumping out an airlock would be more save than that." Most cadets were normally sure which branch they would later join and Lasky had been dumb enough to announce that he would go to the navy, which the gathered future Marines and Army soldiers found to be very funny.

Marc would end up as a Marine and Sam and May were pretty sure about their future army career and well Sheppard was already stupid enough to be an ODST.

Somebody now turned up the volume of a nearby computer terminal, which displayed a news cast.

"After nearly one year of constant negotiations, seven vetoes by the Asari republics and one naked quarian protester, which sadly died from multiple infections afterwards, a treaty has finally been signed between the members of the Citadel government and the UEG. This agreement was described as milestone by ambassador Ugabe who was quoted …." Cheers filled the room now, this agreement meant peace between humans and aliens, at least the Citadel aliens, and most didn't think about the Covenant right now.

" A toast on the Citadel and the treaty !" Lasky rose his glass, which only contained flavored water since alcohol was not allowed for the cadets, and most cadets replied to the toast. At least for everybody who had passed the exams, this was a great day.

What followed were two weeks of vacation, but since the academy was pretty far away from any other human settlements, so this mostly meant free time on the campus. But these weeks proved to be very interesting, because at the second day, something happened nobody expected. An alien ship, a salarian freighter came to the colony, brining technicians and some strange installations.

"I see you have already noticed our new communication relays." Mehaffey had approached Marc and Sam from behind unnoticed, while they had observed the Salarians installing their machines and the recruits directly snapped to attention.

"At ease cadets. You're still on vacation." She smiled slightly and the two cadets relaxed a little, enough so that Sam asked a question both wanted to know.

"Sir, what are these Salarians installing here, I thought anything but Harvest was off limits for the aliens ?" Mehaffey nodded her head, of course they wanted to know they and lucky for them, this information was not secret.

"They are installing new communication relays, Citadel tech. These allow instant communication between colonies and before you ask, we have AIs constantly checking them to prevent any hacking." She answered and the cadets needed a second to realize what this meant.

"So we these allow instant communication, no days and weeks of waiting anymore ?" Marc asked and Mehaffey nodded " Yes, but right now only Harvest and the academy have them. Soon Earth and Reach will follow and within a few years, all of human space. But, before you ask, no civilian usage for now, strictly military and as secured as possible. So no, you can't use it to call home, cadet Bradley." For a second Marc had hoped this, but well it would have been too good to be true.

"We can't rely on Citadel technology too much, it would make us vulnerable, even if we currently cooperate with them." Mehaffey explained, before she returned to a more strict tone.

"You may be on holiday at the moment, but this is still a military installation. So stop slacking off here." Sam and Marc snapped to attention and hurried away as fast as possible, while Mehaffey observed the Salarians for a few more minutes. These aliens were famous for being masters of special ops and intelligence gathering, she would eat an MA5 if they didn't try to install something else here, too.

The free time was, as always, over far too soon, but, on the last day, something happened which stopped their routine of sports, learning and relaxing, which had burned itself into them, even during this short holiday.

"Alright kiddos, make a nice face and don't embarrass me in front of my sister." Shepard told them and he was accompanied by a woman. This was nothing unusual, Shepard not chasing after woman would have been something to worry about, but this woman were an actual navy uniform and the bars of a lieutenant. She was older than John, by at least four to five year, had short, red hair and seemed strangely relaxed. The cadets already wanted to salute her, but she only waved them away, as Shepard introduced her.

"Alright cadets, may I introduce lieutenant Jane Shepard. Bridge officer of the _Ember,_ the frigate currently orbiting the planet and my older sister." Now that John said it, yes they looked a bit similar, but Marc couldn't hold back a snarky comment.

" John and Jane, your parents are really creative when it comes to naming." John seemed only, but Jane only smiled a little, the cadet was not the first to notice that and would surely not be the last one.

"Yes, heard that before. Don't worry cadets, you won't have to endure me for long, my ship just came here on a supply run and I decided to use the opportunity. No formalities, the only reason I wear my uniform at the moment is because my skipped wouldn't allow me to wear my hoddie." Ok, she was Johns sister, since she talked just like him, but at least she wasn't as crazy as him and tried to become a helljumper.

Mother Shepard was a captain in the navy, skipper of the Aachen, the carrier which had donated Marcs BDU during his trip to the Citadel and from what they had heard, their family was far more intact than Laskys, whos mother hardly ever saw him. At least Laskys brother seemed nice, from what messages Marc had seen of him, although he was crazy enough to become an ODST.

"Alright cadets, I don't know what you're planning, but I sure as hell won't spend the six hours I have standing in a hallway, is the hole still open ?" of course, Jane was also a former cadet and the legendary 'hole', the small unofficial bar, where cadets drank what little alcohol they could get, was always open.

Chapter 3 end

 **Codex Entry #100293199:**

 **The UEG-Citadel treaty:**

A controversial treaty, signed by the Citadel council and the UEG in early 2527, which regulates all economic, political and military interactions between the Citadel races and mankind.

An over hundred pages strong document, it was written during several, already legendary rounds of negotiations, where Councilor Tevos more than once left the room frustrated and one Quarian protester died of infection, after she had forced her way into the negotiation rooms, completely naked. Regulating hundreds of different aspects of interaction, the treaty can be boiled down to several basic points :

\- The Council races and the UEG recognize each other as independent and free nations

\- Human civilian ships are allowed to enter any part of Citadel space, which is not a military no-go area

\- Civillian Citadel ships are allowed to enter any part of UEG space (due to the limitations of Mass Effect drives, this is mostly limited to the Outer Colonies), all military installtions and no go area of course excempted. (Sol and Epsilon Eridani were declared no go areas)

\- No military formations of either side are allowed to enter the others territory, unless specifically asked to.

\- Use of AI is limited to on board functions, while human ships are in Citadel space

\- Both sides agree to forbid and sanction any us of WMDs on garden worlds.

* * *

So Chapter 3 done, the boys are through their first or in Shepards and Laskys case their second year and humanity and Citadel are not at each others throats. Everything peachy everything fine.

You may want to ask why there was not follow up to that single, poor Covenant ships. Well that will be explained once we actually reach the Covenant invasion (yes it will come), which still takes time, no no invasion during Marcs time at the academy, that I can tell you.

The Asari are of course no friends of the military build up, their society is based on diplomacy and culture, military is rather alien to them. Yes they have a strong navy, but except for that what they have are small groups of elite soldiers and justicars, so they will of course seek a diplomatic resolution, if it seems possible. Turians and Salarians on the other had have no problem with such a build up, Salarians are actually also increasing their military, building dozens of new ships and increasing the size of their professional army.

Another note, yes I know there are grammar and spelling mistakes, I'm no native speaker and I try my best to correct any mistakes before I upload. Still some slip through, but once time allows, I will go over the already posted chapters again and correct them.

But for now that should be enough, so until next time.

tobiisagoodboy94 out.


	5. Chapter 4: The second and the third year

tobiisagoodboy94 here and before we start a few words.

I really appreciate every review people write for this story, really. BUT. Please stop sending me demands about how to get Halo or Mass Effect "science" right. It's just a little bit annoying if your happy about a review, just to notice that they are arguments about 'how big are Halo guns' etc.

Still thanks for every review, now on with the story.

* * *

Chapter 4

The second and the third year and well a bit more

„Well, now we're in the second year, we're officially no nobbies anymore, any plans to celebrate that ?" it was late evening already and they had finished the first day of their new year at the academy. It's not like this would have changed anything, they still followed the same routine, lectures, training, maneuvers and sometimes cryo training and they would follow it until they graduated.

"Well, May has her room for herself for the next few hours, so we'll use that." Marcs book hardly missed Sam as he jumped for the door and left his friend alone, this was sadly also becoming routine for him. Sam and also Lasky were always busy with their girlfriends and Shepard, well there were now new students and many new female cadets, who didn't knew about him.

So Marc spend most off his little free time alone, at least with Hugh and his thugs gone, he didn't have to care about anybody attacking him anymore.

Still, sometimes he was a bit envies of his friends, but sadly none of the girls had really shown any interest in him and to be honest, relationships in the navy normally didn't last long. With by now far over 2000 ship and tens of thousands of bases on hundreds of colonies, chances that either Sam or Lasky would end up in the same place like their girlfriends, after they graduated, were as good as zero.

"Maybe I should follow John a little bit, let off some steam." Marc mumbled to himself, but then he hammered the book against his forehead, no before did that would rather cut his little friend off. No, if nothing came to be, he would have to push through academy, just he and his hand, since his girlfriend on Harvest had broken up with him the moment he had joined the militia and had set his car on fire. His poor little car, he had just gotten it from grandpa for his 18th birthday, a small and slightly old hydrocar, but still it had been beautiful. Well, maybe he could someday buy an old Warthog, with a fake MG on it, just to freak out that dumb bitch when he would drove by her house.

Well, right now he was still here and buying a car was far far away, since he had no money. The education was for free, but he also didn't get any pay as a cadet, except for the little pocket money mom and dad sent him. Well he had everything he needed here and it was normal, especially for Marines, to live from what the military gave them. Unless you were in the army and very sure that you wouldn't change your post for the next twenty, buying a car or even a house was not that much of an option.

"Concentrate. Mehaffey will tear of my ass. Damm Sam, how can he be so good, he hardly learns and spends all off his time with May." Marc tried to bring his mind back to the book he was reading, but it had no real use, so he instead turned on his computer terminal, thanks to the brand new comm relays, the military net had now instant communication with Harvest and to a lesser extent the Citadel network. He looked for news concerning Harvest and found one, which caught his attention.

"And so, after 96 hours, the stand off between the 3rd fleet and the unregistered colonization fleet from the Eridanus system has been finished peacefully. After mediation by Citadel officials, the fleet, made up of several small freighters and one old colony ship, has passed the relay and is now heading for the Skyllian Verge. UNSC officials have put out a statement, that they will not provide any support or defense to this colonies, as they are not sanctioned by the UEG or the Colonial administration and will as such be considered illegal.

Colonization efforts all over UEG space had come to a hold last year, after the CA had issued a complete halt to the founding of new colonies, since neither the UNSC nor the CMA currently have the means or will to protect any new worlds, with their already thin stretched forces.

The Batarian Hegemony has already announced that they will closely monitor the human colonists, since the Batarians themselves have already planned colonizing that region for a long time. Uncertified reports have talked about connections between terrorists and this colonization fleet and some claim to have seem large amounts of military hardware on these ships, but none of these claims could verified until now."

Yes, Marc remembered the uproar after the official halt on new colonies, but it had been necessary, like the news anchor had said, forces were spread very thin and with aliens at our doorsteps, it was no good idea to spread them even thinner. But if these people wanted to get away from the UEG, why stop them? Better letting them settle far away, where they had to fight pirates and Batarians, then letting them cause unrest here.

Some saw that differently, especially the Batarian ambassador, as he had partitioned a Council meeting, with the UEG representative present.

"The Skyllian Verge is a batarian zone of interest. For decades we have scouted the region and started our colonization efforts there, it's an affront that these humans now settle there." He was angry, really angry thinking about all the money they would loose because off the stupid primates.

"I can only repeat myself, these people, these 20 000 humans are no longer under UEG control, they are independent settlers. What should we have done in your opinion, ambassador. Shoot down half a dozen unarmed ships, filled with families and prefab houses ? There are numerous lush garden world in the Verge, I don't think that a few small, independent human colonies there will pose much of a threat to your interests." Ugabe couldn't stand Batarians, it was like dealing with mental ONI agents, always trying to backstab you or founding pirates and terrorists.

" Please, ambassadors, of course nobody wants any blood shed here." Tevos tried to calm down everybody, she normally didn't like the humans, everybody had turned crazy after they had appeared, but this time they were actually right. And she knew that the Batarians didn't expect any actual consequences from the council, this was just a show, so the Hegemony could claim that it was the Councils fault.

"The Sykllian Verge is under nobody jurisdiction, so independent settlers founding colonies there are no problem. I'm pretty sure that these human settlers could form the foundation for a prosperous trade between them and the new colonies your government plans to build there, ambassador Barank." The Batarian only shook his head, mumbling courses, as he now left the chambers, he had done his job.

"I don't like the prospect of more humans streaming into the Verge, either. Control it or stop it." Tevos now told Ugabe, but the dark-skinned human would have none of this.

"Right now the only thing we care about is how they got their ships modified to get through the relay, councilor. The UEG has issued a halt to colonization, those a private venture, if they happened in out space we would stop them, but the Skillian Verge belongs to nobody, so my government doesn't care." He said, before he also turned and left the chambers.

He would have blamed ONI, if it hadn't been for the fact that ONI were the ones demanding that these ships would be allowed passage, for whatever reason. Several reporters tried to get an interview out of him, but he and his two marine guards just ignored them and marched right towards the human embassy, where several more Marines did their best to hold back even more media members.

"Transmission from Harvest, ambassador, Vice-Admiral Cole is on the line." One of his aides told him as he entered his office and he directly went to his communication terminal. It took a few moments and a hologram of Cole appeared, it was impressive and still surprised Ugabe everytime he used it.

"Ambassador, I just wanted to tell you personally that two more ships have just passed through the relay, heading for the Verge. You should probably be prepared for a giant cluster fuck, I have reports that several more ships are already preparing to come to Harvest." Ugabe sighed about Coles information, this was a worst case scenario. Now that the floodgates had been opened, everybody who dreamed of independent colonies would head into the Verge and it would surely cause even more problems with the Batarians. The sound of breaking glass alerted him and for a moment he thought that the offices window had been broken, but it was just a bottle, which had been thrown against it. Ugabe could see the attacker, a Batarian, through the window, who was now wrestled down by C-Sec officers and pushed away.

"Is everything alright ambassador ?" Coles hologram now asked and Ugabe just shock his head and said "Don't worry, just some protesters. Thank you for informing me Vice-Admiral, I'll try to minimize the diplomatic damage as much as possible."

The colonists leaving UEG space for the Verge become a hot topic in the Academy pretty quickly, most cadets came from inner colonies or even Earth, so they couldn't really understand why so many people wanted to leave, just like they never understood the insurrection .

"They want to be independent, as little government as possible and as much personal freedom as they can get. Better if they leave, before they rebel, too." Marc tried to explain the situation to everybody who asked him and many asked him, it was annoying.

Academy was still the same like it had been before and they had just celebrated the end of the first half of their time here. The only difference was that, from time to time, they had to play foot soldier for the new cadets, which was sometimes funny and sometimes frustrating. They were not allowed to assist the newbies, so the mood of an 2nd year cadet could be pretty bad, if they walked into an obvious trap the leader hadn't noticed.

This time Marc had been the unlucky one and ended up getting hit by several stun round, one right between the eyes, which had knocked him out for several hours and gave him two days in the med bay.

"Well, even more learning for you Bradley, not like you're not used to it." Shepard joked as he and Lasky visited him in the evening and the only reply for this he got was Marcs middle finger.

It was kinds strange always, actually, Marc was two years older than Lasky and Shepard, another fact which had made him stick out, normally cadets joined the academy when they were 15 to 16, Marc had been 18, still acceptable, but he was the oldest in his year.

"So Grandpa, the doc said you're supposed to sleep, so no kissy kissy on your bubus from us today." Shepard again joked, as they left the med bay, while Marc screamed several insults after them. Lasky and Shepard now strolled back to their rooms, it was already nearly dark and there weren't many people still out.

"Are you still sure that you want to become an ODST Shepard, it is a pretty shitty job after all:" John understood why Lasky asked him this, Cadmon, Laskys brother had died a month ago, fighting Innies. It had taken until a few days ago that Lasky had even talked to any of them, so this was already a big progress.

"Somebody has to do it, who else would you sent in doing such a shitty job, it's not like we have super soldiers. But don't worry, I'll always come back for you sweetheart." Laskys response were several nasty curses, before a passing Sergeant told them that he would make these curses true, if they weren't in the quarters in two minutes ago.

So the months passed by, from now then messages came in that a another ship had passed the relay to settle in the Verge and soon other news also popped up, about fire fights were human settlers had mowed down pirates.

People say that time passes fast, if you have fun. Well, than time literally evaporates if you have a routine, because before they knew it, the second year on the academy was reaching its end. The field exams were different this time, they were put into platoons, each lead by a 3rd year cadet. It was to test their ability to follow orders in combat and if they were able to see bad orders, because this time they were allowed to help. Again Marc and Sam made through their exams pretty well. Sadly for them, after the exams, it was time for an goodbye. Shepard and Lasky and his friends had now graduated and would do to actual military training facilities.

"ODSTs training facility bravo. Well much fun on Mars, Shepard." Shepard was still determined to become a Helljumper, while Lasky would go to the navy school on Reach.

"Warn me, if I ever end up under your command or in twenty miles radius around your combat zone, so I can fake injury." Marc asked Shepard, as they all said their goodbye. It would get rather lonely, especially for Marc, since Sam still had his girlfriend.

"If I ever end up anywhere near you or anywhere near Laskys ship, I'll take the next airlock and find out how far 15 minutes of oxygen gets you in space" Shepard returned as they finally left, using the space elevator to reach the ship waiting for them in orbit. They waved at each other one last time, before the doors of the elevator closed. It would probably be the last time they would see each other for a long time.

While Marc and his friends separated from each other, there was a big get together on the Citadel, between salarian, turian and human officials and militaries, the first one of its kind.

Rear admiral Michael Stanforth was one of the huan officers present and he was not very happy about that, since he had to leave his other projects because of this. He was a high-ranking officer in ONI and its representative in this meeting, something which didn't make him too popular with the other officers present.

" Ladies and gentleman, I am very happy to welcome you aboard the Citadel to this first strategic meeting. We are all aware off the Covenant threat that loams at our boarders and today we have come together to at least lay the foundations for a unified defense against them." General Teks, an relatively old Salarian opened the conference and General Victus, a turian officers directly states his point.

"As we all know, what Covenant technology we were able to get a hold off, is superior or at least completely different from what we know. We have only little knowledge, but what we know is very unnerving. Would you explain, rear admiral Stanforth ?" Stanforth now stood up and explained the situation

"For the last 18 months, ONI prowlers have inspected the Covenant positions we were able to get out of the board computers. What we found there was unnerving, putting it mildly. The Covenant fleets and the size of their ships are beyond everything we have, even UNSC supper-carrier only reach half of their largest ships size. Their plasma weapons are very effective against most types of armor, especially that of Citadel ships. Their shields are strong and block any sort of attack, but they can be breached. ONI covert ops teams, like you know, still managed to capture several smaller vessels, which the Covenant seem to classify as 'light cruisers'. One of these was already towed to Citadel space and given to your teams." There was no applause as Stanforth finished, they were professionals after all. A salarian scientist now raised his voice  
"Yes, yes. Covenant technology very advanced, very threatening. But, managed at least some success. Modified barriers were able to deflect all plasma, heat and radiation still a problem, but with the new armor this should be no problem. Also Thanix guns very promising, shooting tests against Covenant ship were very promising." Some of the Salarians now seemed to regret that they brought Dr. Mordin Solus to this meeting and more than one present human raised an eyebrow or two. The Turians and Salarians had poured massive amounts of recourses into new technologies, they had even gotten the support from some Asari arms manufacturers, which weren't happy about their governments passive stance.

What rumors Stanforth had heard about this new weapons and armor were interesting, but he had also heard that the Volus were already complaining that the economy could not take much more military spending. Still the data ONI had gathered about the Covenant made this necessary.

"While the Asari still don't want to hear it, the STG has found several small Covenant outposts, nothing major until now, still their number is growing, just like their activity. They raided three mercenary outposts in the last two months and killed anybody present. There actions fit the reports ONI has shared with us. The Covenant are religious zealots, they see us as heathens, insults to their gods, filth they have to purge. The only reason they haven't attacked us already is probably that they still need to prepare. How long will this take ? We have no idea, even ONI prowlers have only been able to observe outposts and small patrols. We have no idea where their major shipyards or where their colonies are, we don't know how large their fleets are and how many soldiers they have." A Salarian General explained the situation and it was not reassuring.

They had no possibility to counter attack once the war broke out, all they could do was waiting for the attacks and trying to defend them as good as possible. Still, they had to do everything they could to be prepared and part of this was fortifying Harvest as good as possible. The Harvest Relay was the only connection and possible supply line they had, so the UNSC had already invested much to strengthen the colonies defense.

Large shipyards, space stations and orbital defense were all under construction around the planet, tens of thousands of soldiers were now stationed there and the overall population had already risen to over one million in the last two years.

The meeting went on with many discussions and it wouldn't stay the only such event in the future, they needed to coordinate if they were to survive what was to come.

Talking about survival Marc and Sam were at the moment really thinking about the possibility that they wouldn't survive their last year in the Academy. Lasky and Shepard had always told them how hard the training in the 3rd year was, but they had never believed until they had actually done it themselves.

Their PT marchers were now 20 miles long and they nearly had to run the whole time and if they weren't training, they had to learn more than they had ever imagined before. Still, they had to do it, dropping out now, after they had invested far over two years into this, after all the work and effort they had put into all of this, giving up was no option.

Still, the days passed by fast, they had hardly any free time, even less than before, so days turned into weeks and weeks into months. While they worked and learned, new ships left the shipyards every day, defenses, not only on Harvest, were improved and garrison were created on worlds, which until now had not even had properly armed police officers.

Marc couldn't really tell anybody anything specific he had done in the last year, still he could probably answer any question about any topic he had learned in the academy, routine was really good at burning such things into ones mind.

The final exams were again, written, oral and maneuver, still Marc went through them like he was in some sort of trance, just functioning in that situation, doing what he had learned so far. He had passed, with good grades actually, but still without being able to properly recount any question he had answered. All he knew was that he was waiting in front of Mehaffeys office, Sam was already inside, getting his evaluation from the Colonel and then he was called inside.

"Alright, Mister Bradley, you didn't fail my expectations or the trust that was put in you, when you came here three years ago." Three years, god dammit, three years had passed and Marc had hardly noticed it.

"You could, if you'd want to, join literally any branch of the UNSC. While you're written exam is only decent, you still meet the requirement for both the Navy and ONI." Mehaffey went on and all Marc could think about was how grandpa would shoot him the moment he knew that Marc had joined ONI.

"But, I know that this is not your interest. If your opinion has not drastically changed, you would still prefer the Marine Corps. Is that right, cadet ?" Marc nodded in response and for a short moment there was a hint of grin on her face, before she went on.

"You could become a simple Marine, yes cadet, but I do have a special post for you in mind." She now handed a slip of paper to him and Marc took a few moment to read it.

"Marine Recon, sir ?" he asked, slightly puzzled, this was not really what had expected, but it was nothing bad.

"Yes Marine Recon. You are talented and this is a prestigious and well respected part of the Marine corps. While you do lack the patience necessary to become an actual sniper, you are an excellent marksman and good tactician. During your first year exam you managed to reach the flag without anybody noticing it, an impressive feat. You'll have one more year of training there, then you'd be a 2nd lieutenant and would get to lead your own team." Marc started to like this idea, another year of training didn't sound so hard and being a Marine Recon sounded good, too.

"Alright, then I'll do that. Marine stays Marine after all." Now Mehaffey actually grinned at him and offered him her hand, which Marc shook.

"We'll send you everything to Reach tomorrow. You'll follow in a week and don't bring shame to this academy. Next time I see you I want you to be an 2nd lieutenant, dismissed cadet."

With these words and this handshake, Marcs time as a cadet in the academy ended. Not officially, the general held a speech the last day, which was painfully similar to the two speeches Marc had witnessed before, but directly afterwards the gave back all of their uniforms, except for the underwear, those were a goodbye gift.

"So, this is a goodbye then." Another week had past, this time far slower than all the weeks before and he stood in front of the orbital elevator again, saying his goodbye to Sam.

"Yeah, sure we'll see each other again bro. Just don't get too fat in your army garrison ." Marc joked as he fist-bumped his friend goodbye, he waved at him as he entered the elevator, he wasn't the only heading for Reach so this time he wasn't alone. Then, with a loud hiss, the doors of the elevator closed and with this, his three years at the academy ended, he wouldn't see this planet anymore, which had been his home for three years.

Travel to Reach took long, so he stayed in cyro stasis for the journey, after all of the training in the academy it was as normal for him like going to bed. When he came out of stasis, three weeks later, the ship was already in orbit above Reach, humanities biggest fortress in the star.

Sol was humanities home, over a third of humanity still lived on Earth, Lunar, Mars and the juvian moons, but Reach was the biggest ship yard humanity had. Only Mars could rival Reach in this aspect, but the 'red planet', which was pretty blue and green today, lacked the massive titanium deposits Reach had.

"Welcome to Reach soldier, you will first learn to hate it and then you'll learn to love it." A sergeant told him, as he left the orbital elevator in New Alexandria, one of Reachs largest city. New Alexandria alone had several times more inhabitants than all of Harvest, it was strange for Marc to see this, a single city with more inhabitants than most outer colonies had.

He was again wearing civilian clothing, a strange sensation after wearing nothing but uniforms in the last three years, so the Air force lieutenant waiting for him looked a bit skeptical at first. There were five more recruits in the Pelican as they took off from a military flight pad. The flight took several hours and Marc was pretty sure that this base was most likely located in the wilderness of Reach, far away from any city or even village.

A cold wind blew into his face as he left the Pelican, Harvest, his home, was a rather warm planet, but Reach was colder and this place seemed to be located in one of Reachs even colder regions.

"Recruits, I welcome you to the 1st Marine Recon training facility, but we normally just call it the 'big cold shithole in the middle of nowhere', but you will call it your beautiful home, until you earned the right to call it that name. Do you understand !?" a drill sergeant directly ordered them around, but this was nothing Marc wasn't used to. He seemed to be the only officer trainee, the others were pretty new, had just finished their basic training. The first thing they did was the usual, going to the armory and getting their equipment, which was much more than he had gotten in the academy.

Two full sets of armor and several sets of uniforms for underneath the armor, sporting clothes and of course the dress uniform, but he would probably not wear it during his time here. The academies quarters had been simple but the rooms here had nothing in them, except for beds, a table and chairs and of course lockers. No computer terminals and not many possibilities to communicate with the outside world. But this was nothing Marc cared about, he now wore his brand new uniform, the full BDU with all armor, it even seemed a little bit heavier than what he had had in the academy. They were now handed out their guns, actual guns, which also could fire stun rounds, but in difference to the academy they would now use real ammo.

"Academy said you're a good marksman, Bradley. Take this, you can keep this beauty if you prove that." A wide smile was now across Marcs face, as the captain gave him an BR55, the same type of battle rifle he had been using in the militia. His hands needed a few seconds to remember the gun, but then he handled it like he had used it for ages. They went to the shooting range now and for the first time in over three years, Marc was given real ammo, three full magazine, 108 bullets.

"Alright, Bradley, 105 hits and you can keep this beauty." The captain told him and Marcs eyes went over the shooting range, there were dozens of wooden figures. The familiar bang of a shoot from a battle rifle rang over the open range and after this first shoot, Marcs body quickly remembered what to do.

Precise shoots, one in the head, one in the right side of the torso and one in the left side, then the next target and then the next. Some were only sixty feet away, others nearly six hundred, but Marc kept on firing, precisely and fast. After two minutes the first magazine was empty, another three for the second and again two minutes for the last.

"107, you sure you don't want to become a sniper Bradley, that's pretty good ?" the Captain asked slightly surprised and Marc replied with a grin.

"No, I lack patience for that. But I have to admit, during my time in the militia I was lucky enough to get one of these guns, at least for a few weeks." The Captain now laughed at this and patted him on the shoulder, before saying.

"Well this gun is now yours and you will keep it as long as you're here. Now, let's see if you can handle a pistol, too." Well, first day was not going bad for Marc here, but he was pretty sure that things would get much harder the next few weeks.

While Marc now started his training as a Marine Recon, above his head dozens of ships were constructed in Reachs massive ship yards. The turian officer, which had been send here to ease further cooperation, was amazed by this. Humanity had only been in space for 350 years, but still they had build gigantic structures like these shipyards, bigger than any the Hierachy had. More amazing was the ship he was now entering, 2,5 kilometers long, three times as much as a dreadnought and it probably had at least ten times the mass of one.

"Captain Arterius, I welcome you on board the Spirit of Fire." Captain Cutter, the skipper of this massive ship now greeted him. Cutter was older than Arterius, nearly fifty years old already and he looked like a man, hardened by combat.

"Thank you Captain, it is an amazing ship. It's size alone, it dwarves even the Destiny Ascension." The baffled Turian said, as Cutter lead him through the ships massive hangars and then the labyrinth of corridors.

"You can get lost in here starve to death, if you don't know your way, Captain, so don't try anything." Cutter remarked jokingly and Arterius believed what he had said. It took them nearly fifteen minutes to reach the ships massive bridge. Dozens of crew members were already busy, even though it would still take weeks until they left the dry docks.

"That's the second overhaul Spirits got since she was put into service. She used to be a colony ship, but was then turned into a military support ship. Now she gets additional armor, a brand new reactor system and an overhaul for her main gun. She's not a dreadnought or a cruiser in terms of fire power, but she can still hold her own." Cutter explained, while Arterius surprised eyes still inspected anything around him.

"I have no doubt about that Captain, I surely don't have any doubt about that."

Chapter 4 end

Codex Entry #2001976487

UNSC Marine Recon :

The UNSC Marine Recon are some of the best trained and experienced soldiers in the whole UNSC, but in difference to the infamous ODSTs, they are not pure combat units. While ODSTs drop from star ships and perform raids or missions to crazy for any sane person, the Recon take a different approach. Recons normally come into action once a beachhead is established, they are trained for extensive, independent operations behind enemy lines and try to keep a low profile as possible. Recon are excellent soldiers and fighters, but the best Marine Recons are those, who fullfil their mission without firing a single shoot.

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So, the academy is done and to be honest, Recon training will also end next chapter, so we can get to the actual story, finally.

I shortened the academy to speed things up, but I hope it won't be too bad for you guys. Like I said I'm always happy about reviews and for those who ask, I base every 'fact' about Halo or Mass Effect on their wikis, so please argue with their authors and with me about how strong MAC guns or if they should build a star forge (seriously what the f***, this is not Star Wars).

Still, happy abotu every feedback and review and until next time.

tobiisagoodboy94 out


	6. Chapter 5: A long mission

tobiisagoodboy94 here. Well time for a new chapter, finally out story actually starts.

A short announcement before it starts : I'm in need of an Beta reader, since I am no native reader and even if I prove reade several times there are still many mistakes. So if you are interested and good some free time, please write me a PM, I'll really appreaciate it.

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Halo Colonial War

Chapter 5

A long mission

„Sierra 2, this is Sierra 1, are you in position ?" Marc asked into his helmets integrated radio and after a second of silence, the answer came.

"Sierra 1, Sierra 2 here. We are in position and will provide cover, if needed." After Häckins answer, Marc signaled his fellow soldier and they moved out. Slowly and patiently, watching every of their steps, keeping a low profile, moving through the settlement like ghosts. A few enemies patrolled the small settlement, which was made up of a few hundred pre-fab houses, a typical village in an outer colony. They were well armed, but those weapons were only a last resort, using them right now was out of question. Their objective was a slightly larger building in the center of the settlement, their enemies HQ, where they would surely find the high value target they were looking for.

Mina, Marcs fellow soldier, now pointed towards a small back alley, which gave them a clear view on the enemy HQ. They made a short sprint towards this spot, after a patrol has passed by them, only missing them by sheer luck. The side street really did allow them to look at the whole central building, while still giving them enough cover and shadows to stay hidden. Marc now took out his binoculars, taking a closer look and after a few moments he spotted the stars of their target. "This is Sierra 1, the eagle is in the nest, I repeat eagle is in the nest." Marc whispered into his radio and after a few seconds the reply came " Copy that, Sierra 1. Five minutes until air strike." Yep, they would make sure that nothing in this enemy encampment would survive and if Marc and Mina were too slow, they would also perish.

"Five minutes until they send this place to hell. Lets get out of here." Marc told her and a second later they were already hurrying out of village, still as stealthy as they could, but faster than before.

"Sierra 2, this is Sierra 1. Be prepared to cover our exit and run, the knights are already charging." Marc whispered into his radio, as they hurried through the streets and for the settlements borders, he could swear that one patrol had properly seen them, but right now they needed to get out of here.

They had nearly reached the woods surrounding the settlement, as somebody opened fire, Sierra 2 had opened fire on the patrols now chasing Sierra 1. Neither marc nor Mina turned around to see how their enemies collapsed as they got hit by Sierra 2s fire. Then another sound started to drown out the gunfire, heavy jet engine roared through the valley, as the Recon team jumped behind a large rock for cover. The Longsword flew over the village in low altitude, doing its bombing run. But nothing happened, at least no explosions happened.

"Not a perfect finish, but very good Sierra 1 and 2. Congratulations, you've passed." The instructors voice told them over radio and the four soldiers started to cheer, this had been their last training and they had just passed.

The "dead" enemies now stood up again, luckily none had gotten a stun round to the face, and applauded the small recon team, as several Pelicans approached the training site. The chief instructor, an old captain Marc had learned to fear and respect throughout the last year, stepped out of the first Pelican and after a short salute, congratulated them.

"Well done soldiers. You are now officially Marine Recons, at least you're rookies." He said with a slight grin on his face and the each of the four soldiers chest was swollen with pride.

"Now, attention !" the captain ordered and they snapped to attention, as the captain approached Marc, pulling two silver bars out of his pockets.

"Private 1st class Marc Bradley. In the name of the United Nations Space Command Defense Force, I hereby promote you to the rank of 2nd lieutenant." He put the bars on Marcs shoulder pads and then hammered on his shoulders and even through the armor, Marc had a feeling like his shoulders would break. Everybody now applauded, also the other member of recon team Sierra. The other members of the team were enlisted soldiers. Mina and Häckins were privates 1st class and Daiki was a Sergeant.

"Thanks you, Captain Jesson. Drinks are of course on me today." Marc now said, thankfully he had actually been paid during his year as a Recon in training, so this wouldn't cost all of his money.

"HURRA !" all the gathered Marines now screamed in return and a few minutes later, they were on board the Pelicans, heading back to base.

Of course, alcohol was not allowed on duty, but since duty for today ended the moment they had taken of the armor, it only took a few minutes until they were all getting a drink in the bar.

Sadly for them, the next day they were all hung-over, but still, at 7 am Sierra team had to appear at the Captains office.

"Alright, Sierra team. You are no longer Sierra team, that was your designation during training, you will get a new designation at your actual unit. Keep the equipment, it's new and it's easier than to reequip you every time. Now, to the bad news. You will have to stay in purgatory for two months. The higher ups have something in mind for you, but they won't say it now, so you'll stay in New Alexandria central until they decide where to waste you." The recon team replied with a loud haha to the Captains 'joke', who grinned a little bit, before he said.

"You have one hour and the Pelican won't wait for you, so get out of my sight and good luck recons." They saluted the captain as a goodbye and then hurried to their lockers. They had trained how to pack their equipment so often that they were done with in less than half an hour, so they already waited for the Pelican as it landed on the bases heli pad.

They could already enter, while the Pelican was refueled, they could put away their bags which contained everything they needed. They were wearing a full BDU and carried their weapons with them. All in all twelve new recons were sitting in the back of the pelican and were all ready to go to their new units.

"So lieutenant, any plans what we should do in New Alexandria ? Two months of forced vacation, all of our vacation from last year and this year combined." Häckin asked Marc jokingly, as the Pelican finally lifted off and for a moment Marc had to think about that. It was the first time in four year he had an actual vacation, which he didn't have to spend in a military base or the academy.

"Well, I'm drawing a blank here. Got no idea what to do in New Alexandria. You know, I'm just a farmer boy from Harvest, got no idea about the big city." His little joke was replied with some dry laughs, before Mina joined the conversation.

"I don't know what to do the next few weeks, but I got an idea for what to do today. Ever heard about 'Central Steak House', it's one of the best places in the whole city."

"Everything." Daiki replied " I'll eat everything as long as it is no Moa. I ate enough Moa for a whole lifetime." Yes that was true. Those birds were native to Reach and to save some money, the bases cooks made specials out of local Moas every few days, it was good, but after eating it for nearly a hundred time it was enough.

The flight to new Alexandria took hours, but this was nothing they weren't used to and as they came to the military base, in which they would spend the next two months, Marc had nearly walked into the normal quarters, before Daiki had given him a short notice that he was now an officer and that meant single room.

It was the first time, since he had left Harvest, that Marc had a room for himself, the room wasn't big, a bed, a desk and a chair, a looker and a small 'bath room' with a shower and a toilette.

"I can get used to that." Marc mumbled, as he put away his equipment and took some of his old civilian clothes. He was already about to leave the room, it was late and duty had ended half an hour ago, as a corporal ran towards him and saluted , something Marc still had to get used to, and said "I'm sorry lieutenant, but you and your teams vacation has just been terminated. NAPD has found a terrorist hide out and request military assistance, you and your team are the only ones still in base." This was just perfect, yes perfect.

"Please inform my team. I'll get ready." Marc said, slightly depressed, as he waddled back into his room. Fifteen minutes later he and his team were ready, wearing their BDU and weapons, combat ready.

"Alright team. We still have no new designation, so let's keep the call names we used during training. NAPD got information about a terrorist hideout and they request our assistance in getting all the information they need. We'll infiltrate, find out how many they are and what kind of equipment they have and then get out before the cavalry rolls in." Marc now looked at his watch it was 19:30 earth standard time. " If we're lucky we get back before next morning, so let's get going Recons." The team gave him no hurra like they normally did, it was late and nobody was too happy about this mission.

A few minutes later they sat in a Pelican again, their asses had not even regained their natural shape after the last ride, but well, they were actual soldiers now and had finished their training, they should expect something like this. Luckily, the ride was short, only twenty minutes, before they landed in one of the smaller villages surrounding New Alexandria. Half a mile outside the village to be precise, where several police cars and Pelican had already formed a small perimeter and the police chief didn't seem to be too happy.

"Alright, you are the Marine Recons we were promised ? Alright, this is the situation. We send in some officers a few hours ago, they got greeted by a hail of bullets and now two of my officers are dead. I have SWAT teams ready and a platoon of additional Marines in reserve. I need you guys to go in there and find out how many terrorists we face and what arms they have." The chiefs orders were simple, normally a civilian like him had no right to give them orders, but this was his operation so nobody questioned it.

"We enter from here ." Marc explained a few minutes later, as they were preparing their approach, analyzing what they had. It wasn't much, this was a small farming settlement, nobody had cared about drawing a precise map of it, but luckily there was an actual entrance point, a part of the settlement, where the surrounding forest came so close to the building, that a short jump was enough to reach them.

"Sierra 2 will go in this time, Sierra 1 will stay in reserve and prepared to give you cover for a retreat." Marc and Mina would take position on a small hill, slightly outside the village, with enough trees for cover, but few enough to still see something.

Marc lay down on the ground, looking through the scope of his battle rifle, while Mina secured with her SMG, in case the terrorists had patrols outside their village. This was not really necessary, since the forest and fields around the village were now filled with police officers and Marines, but still security over everything.

"I can see you Sierra 2, there is a guard overlooking your route. I'll tell you once he turns away." Marc whispered, as he still observed the terrorist, who seemed to be armed with some sort of hunting rifle, no military gun, that was sure.

"Go." He said, as the guard finally turned away after two minutes and he could see the shadows of his soldiers hurrying to their new cover, they had made it into the settlement and nobody had screamed or opened fire.

"Sierra 1, Sierra 2 here. We've spotted HMG-38s, seems like these people have good connections. M40s, too. But only a few, most of them seem to have old hunting rifles. We estimate about 30, maximum 40 of them and at least as many civilians, affiliation unknown." Sierra 2 finally replied after almost ten minutes of silence and Marc directly ordered them to get out there, before he relayed the information to the police chief.

Bang ! It wasn't the first time Marc had killed a living being, after all he had killed two turians back then, but those had been faceless attackers back then. His hand wouldn't rest after he had pulled the trigger, one guardsman had turned around too fast and had spotted Sierra 2 and before he could do something Marc had eliminated him. He took a deep breath, then a second and a third, he had to remember his training, clam down.

He pressed himself behind his rifle again and gave his team covering fire, as hell broke loose around the village. Over a hundred SWAT officers and Marines now stormed it and they didn't ask questions, anybody dumb enough to point something at them was shoot. It took Marc a minute to realize the noise around him, he hadn't even heard his own first shoot, but now he kept on firing to give his team cover. Everything was over within a few minutes, the terrorists had not expected any actual Marines and many of their private weapons had no chance against the soldiers body armor, their bullets just bounced off. Marc turned his eyes away, once the firefight was over, he didn't want to see the results, his empty stomach felt bad enough already.

Mina next to him also didn't look that good and she hadn't even seen it through a magnifying scope.

"Well, seems like we'll have to get used to that. You alright ?" he asked Mina and she only nodded, while leaning against a nearby tree. It took a few minutes until Sierra 2 reached them and they also didn't seem too well, Daiki had blood on his boots and Häckin was very pale. Of course they had been shown many pictures and gone through training to keep them from collapsing during combat and this really worked during combat, but once the firefight was finished, it didn't work that well anymore.

"So I don't think that anyone of you still want to go to that restaurant today, like in 16 hours ?"

The operation was considered a success in the end, only a few wounded officers and half of the 34 terrorists dead, yes that was considered a success, even though their recon had only been a partial success, they had known what they faced but they had also forced a premature intervention.

The next few weeks were not good, waiting for a new assignment wasn't known as purgatory for nothing, you didn't have anything to do, but you couldn't do nothing because you always had to be ready.

When a logistics sergeant finally came to them, after six weeks of waiting, Marc was just a few moments away from actually offering himself for paper work, that's how bored he was.

"Good news for you and your team lieutenant, your new orders just came in, seems like you were really lucky." She said, as she handed the orders to Marc, who took a few seconds to read through them.

"17th Expeditionary flotilla, never heard of it. What's that supposed to be ? " He asked the sergeant and she replied with a knowing smile " Oh lieutenant, you'll find that out soon enough. You and your team will be awaited at the orbital elevator at 1200. Good night and good luck." She smiled, before turning away and leaving Marc alone. The next day, at 1150, Marc and his team were at the elevator, with all of their equipment, ready for duty. The local corporal took a brief look at the teams data and then told them, with a smirk "Spirit of Fire, C-dock. Seems like you guys are gonna have quite some space up there, good luck."

Spirit of Fire, they had heard about that ship already. She was one of the Phoenix-class ships the UNSC had converted into fleet support ships nearly 30 years ago. They had heard stories about those ships size, but it still hit them like a brink, as they walked through the orbital docks and got a look a Spirit, through on of the stations windows.

"Wow, it's like looking at a mountain of metal, can you image what it cost to build this monster ?" Mina asked, as the whole group looked at the behemoth with amazement, this ship even dwarfed the Aachen by at least half a mile.

" 2nd lieutenant Marc Bradley and his team, Marine Recons. Reporting for duty." Marc told the marines guarding the airlock leading to the Spirit and after reading through their data, he answered.

"Alright, report to major Hennson in the barracks, he's in command of the Recon force on board. He'll be happy to get some fresh meat, last mission 'depleted' most of our Recons." The marine added a tone his last words, which marc and his team didn't like, but he could imagine what 'depleted' meant.

" Let's hope the major knows what he's doing and won't deplete us, too." Daiki said, as they entered the ship, but nobody replied as they tried to find their way through the ship. The idea of getting shoot during a mission or end as a red spot somewhere was nothing they liked.

Orientation in the Spirit was pure horror, large parts of the ships were made up by the main gun, the hangars and the engines, but there were still enough rooms and corridors to get lost and never be found again.

Major Hennson was a rather small and nimble man with pale skin, on which you could literally read his probably twenty years of combat experience and after some formal greeting, he send them to their quarters. A private room, similar to the one in New Alexandria, only even smaller, for Marc and the three bunk room for the rest of his team. They were the last recon team that had been awaited on the ship, so an hour later, after they had stored away all of their equipment, Marc and his team listened to a briefing by the Major.

"Welcome on board the Spirit of Fire, Recons. Before there are any question, you might have noticed the fact that most of our present comrades in this room are relatively young and fresh from training. Sadly, during here deployment in the Eridanus system, Spirit was ambushed by terrorist, which managed to destroy several Pelicans, which were mostly filled with Recons. Since then we had been seriously understaffed and were reduced to minimal strength. You might now ask yourself, why would any sane person fill up nearly the whole Recon force with younglings like you ? Well, that is due to our mission, to which I come now." Hensson was right, Marc thought, as his eyes wandered through the room, most of the soldiers were about his age, maybe a bit older and mostly 2nd lieutenants, Corporals and Sergeants.

"Our mission is no ordinary patrol and most importantly it won't even be in human space. The Spirit of Fire and a sizeable flotilla will travel to Citadel space. We will take part in several joint maneuvers with both the turian and salarian militaries, which will take 6 months. I know, this is a long deployment, but there will be breaks between the maneuvers, visits to the Citadel and planet for rest and some fun." The major now went on with some explanations for the next hour, planned maneuvers, logistics and some cultural dos and don'ts for Citadel space.

It took three more day until Spirit was ready for departure, this ship alone carried enough fuel, ammunition and food to supply a whole brigade for a full year, not counting in it's ability to produce fuel, ammo and spare parts itself. Marc observed the procedure of leaving the docks from one of the ships old observation decks and he looked through the ships that would accompany Spirit to her destination.

3 Helbard-class destroyer, brand new ships, heavy fire power and armor, at least capable of fighting a turian cruiser one on one.

4 frigates, 2 Stelwarts, support and escort frigates and 2 Paris-class heavy frigates, with heavier armor and a stronger Mac, but still lighter than a destroyer.

But those ships and the two additional Mako-class corvettes were peanuts compared to the other capital ships escorting the Spirit.

The Hammerhead, a new Marathon-class ship, directly out of the dry dock, a very powerful ship, easily rivaling the Citadels dreadnoughts.

And a ship Marc knew already, the Aachen, an Orion-class assault carrier, commanded by rear-admiral Hannah Shepard, John and Jane Shepards mother. All in all a small battlegroup, but with impressive firepower and thanks to the Aachen and the Spirit the only thing they would ever need to resupply would be food. Marc and his team were just debating over a hypothetical battle between a Krogan and an Asari commando, when Captain Cutters voice rang through the ships speaker system, calling all officers to the mission briefing.

The Spirits briefing room was giant enough room for hundreds if not thousands of people and it was full. The deafening mumbling died down the moment the Captain entered the room and nobody even dared to sneeze or cough anymore.

Captain Cutter was in his early 50s, wore the standard navy officers BDU and had gray hair and a thin beard. His face was hardened by many years of service, but he didn't seem like the kind of officer who would make you feel that he is your superior.

"Alright, first, welcome to everybody who is new on the Spirit. She may not be prettiest or strongest bird in the fleet, but she's our bird." There were a few grins on some faces, but Cutter already went on.

"This is will be a mostly diplomatic operation, which is why I expect professionalism from everybody. We will have some public posing, nice talking with the natives and a few smaller and larger mock battles, both ground and in space. There is also something else." He made a short pause, as he looked on his datapad again, not very happy with what he was reading.

"We will also have Citadel emissaries on our ships for the next six month. I know what some of you will think about having aliens and then also alien civilians on our ships, but the Security Council decided and we will follow their decision. Translation software has been integrated into every soldiers helmets, once you put on a helmet or connect with a computer terminal, you will receive a software upgrade for your neural interface, which allows for instant translation of all languages spoken by the Citadel species." Oh yes, the neural interface, that little computer they put into every soldiers skull once he's through basic training and which can only be removed by experts once it's inside your skull. Marc could swear that his was not fitted in well, it always itched, but the docs always told him that this was just his imagination. Well, at least now it became useful, automatic translation was surely a great idea, since they didn't have these Omni-tools the Citadel species used.

"Now, there is one last thing I have to update you about, especially our Marine and Army comrades." He now got a metal apparatus, about the size of an assault rifle, handed from his XO and, after inspecting it for a few moments, he lifted it in the air and explained.

"This is a barrier generator, made by humans, first generation. By Citadel standards it only counts as light, but it will soon become one of your best friends, because it will protect you from enemy fire. You won't be invincible, but these will stop a few bullets and in difference to armor, they can regenerate, protecting you again after a few moments of staying in cover." Now there was some mumbling among the officers, this was amazing, having actual shields like this would change everything. Cutter directly noticed the change of mood and made sure that his men wouldn't get cocky.

"Don't think that this will make you invincible, these are basically mass produced prototypes, HIGH COM literally forced these things into production. They are nowhere near as good as those the Turians or Asari have and they are still not one hundred percent reliable, so don't get crazy." The mumbling now stopped, the fact that these things were not completely reliable was a mood changer. The idea of a barrier generator simply dying during a fire fight was not very reassuring.

The briefing went on now, formalities about the Citadel and many things the major had already told Marc and the other Recons.

Once the briefing was done, preparations for something else started, the travel to Harvest took weeks, so the majority of the crew would enter cryo stasis, well how much Marc had missed that during his recon training.

It has already been said, entering cryo is not comparable to sleeping, it was just cold and then suddenly waking up again, not refreshed, but slightly exhausted and always took some time until one had completely recovered. That was why this was trained so often during the academy, because especially officers needed to be ready the moment they left the tube. Marcs adjusting period after cryo only took a few minutes, but even he hadn't completely recovered when, a minute after he had left cryo, he was directly addressed by one of the Spirits bridge man had literally waited outside his tube, which creeped Marc out, once his brain had warmed up enough to realize this.

"2nd lieutenant Bradley. Take on you armor and follow me to the bridge, the captain is awaiting you." Marc only needed three minutes to change from his cryo suit to his BDU and was just completely warmed up as they reached the ships bridge. Marc sharply saluted Captain Cutter and only realized the Asari standing next to Cutter afterwards.

"Lieutenant Bradley, good to see that you took the cryo well." Cutter small talked a little with Marc, something the Captain was known for and which him incredibly popular with the lower ranks.

"As refreshing as always. Really started to miss it while on Reach." He replied, slightly sarcastic and Cutter answered, with a slight grin

"Yes, like always. But let's get serious lieutenant. Let me introduce you to miss Liara T'Soni, miss T'Soni, 2nd lieutenant Marc Bradley." T'Soni was an Asari, just as attractive as most members of her species, but clearly a civilian, so Marc offered his hand, which she happily shook in return.

" A pleasure to meet you lieutenant, I already heard about you. You were one of the militiamen at first contact, right ?" Liara asked and 'of course' went through the marines head, of course they would use his 'expertise' for this, even though it had been over four years since he had been on the Citadel.

"Yes, yes I was. But it is not like I did much, just was done by vice-admiral Cole and staff sergeant Johnson did everything." Marc always replied something like this, it was true and normally kept annoying questions away from him and Liara didn't seem to be interested in asking more.

"Miss T'Soni is one of the envoys the Citadel send to us. She's been studying our culture on Harvest until now, but she has volunteered for this." Cutter explained and Liara nodded, before she explained more "Yes, I may be only 107 years old, but I am an well educated researcher and hope that my work will improve relations between humanity and the Citadel." 'only 107 years' Marc had to admit that this was old, at least by his standards. Even with cloned organs and cancer no problem for humanity anymore, looking like her with 107 years would be impressive for humans, or rather impossible.

"Well, you look like at most 80, miss T'Soni." Marc tried to flatter her, but she only smiled and replied " You can call me Liara, lieutenant, miss T'Soni is my mother. And just a little side note, you just said that I look like a child, since I'm hardly considered an adult at my current age." Alright, one miss step for him, but at least the Asari still smiled at him.

"Alright, you two getting along makes this much easier." Cutter now joined the conversation again, while some of the bridge crew had now turned towards them, as the captain went on.

"2nd lieutenant Marc Bradley, for the duration of our stay in Citadel space and as long as Miss T'Soni is on board the fleet, you and your team will accompany and help her.".

Marc was not sure how to react, four years of academy and recon training and now he was supposed to be a bodyguard and animator for this alien lady, not that he had anything against her, still this seemed not appropriate. But he didn't show this, he was professional enough for this and only replied with a short "Understood sir.".

"Alright, lieutenant. Miss T'Soni demanded to get a cabin with the troops, so she'll get the empty one next to yours. Please escort her to her cabin, lieutenant." Cutter now ordered him and after giving the captain a sharp salute, Marc turned back to Liara.

"Alright, Liara. Is there any package I could help you with ?" he asked, not expecting much, but to his dismay the young Asari pointed towards a small pile of bags and boxes, which Marc hadn't noticed until now. He could swear that several members of the bridge crew were grinning and giggling as he passed them and even Cutter seemed to have a usually wide smile on his face, as Marc left. He could have sworn that one of the snickering bridge crew sounded familiar, but now he had to do this.

"You really don't have to carry all of this, lieutenant, I'm sure that there are other ways." Liara tried to argue against Marc, who carried 3 boxes in his hands and two bags over his shoulders, while Liara had the last remaining, very small bag.

"Oh, don't worry Liara and it's Marc, I can't even stand my squad calling me LT , so please call me Marc, if it's alright for you." Marc replied, panting heavily, until Liara finally took one of the crates, smiling at the young soldier.

'How are we supposed to fit all of this stuff into a cabin ?'

Chapter 5 end

Codex Entry #100998822 :

MACs and Mass Drivers

The nature of UNSC weapons has caused much debate in Citadel and UEG space since first contact.

Many in Citadel space have made jokes about human MAC guns, but are these justified ?

No, as many turian and salarian military experts argue, both the MAC and the mass effect mass driver have completely different philosophies behind them and are both equally useful, but require different strategies.

The main gun of a dreadnought fires a relatively small, up to 20 kg heavy, tungsten projectile with up to 4280 km/s, generating an impact energy of about 38 kilotons of TNT, which is about 2.5 times as much as the first militarily used nuclear warhead produced by humanity. A dreadnought can fire its main gun every two second, but normally fires at a far slower rate to prevent overheating.

A standard issue light MAC, used in human frigates and destroyers, on the other hand fires a massive, 600 tons heavy, tungsten-uranium round at about 30 km/s, generating an impact energy of over 64,5 kilotons of TNT. Recharging a MAC takes up to two minutes, depending on the output of the ships energy systems, newest models have been able to reduce this recharge time by up to 30 %.

The difference is easy to spot, one fires small and fast projectile, the other gigantic but rather 'slow' ones. A human admiral put it as following : " Citadel ships fire at you with tank guns, our ships simply throw the whole tank at you.".

While some look down at the short reach and 'clumsiness' of a MAC, several things have to be noted. A direct hit from any MAC destroys a frigate instantly, even the most modern cruisers can only withstand a single hit, while loosing it's barriers and parts of it's armor, and even the barriers of dreadnoughts collapse after more than two hits.

So while Citadel ships have an advantage in range and rate of fire, human ships have an immense advantage once they get into close range, since even their 'smaller' ships like frigates (which are the size of Citadel cruisers) have enough firepower to threaten even dreadnoughts.

The human destroyers, for example, have been dubbed "cruiser killer" by some, due to the fact that they carry two MACs and numerous additional weapon systems, more than enough to overkill a cruiser in a one on one.

* * *

So Chapter 5 is done.

I hope the codey entry finally stops any discussions about the size of guns etc. What I wrote here is law in this story and no further discussion is needed.

Well, the first Mass effect character has made her debute and it is Liara. Will we see more characters (yes) and who will they be (well Garrus and co) and what are the Covenant doing all the time ( cleaning their mandibles and fiddeling the prophets ?). We will all of that soon ^^.

tobiisagoodboy94, out.


	7. Chapter 6: Second time on the Citadel

tobiisagoodboy94 here. First, a big apology for beeing inactive for so long. Private problems and searching for a new place to live took some time. Problems are still not all solved, but I'll try my best to be faster next time. But enough private stuff, now have fun.

* * *

Halo

Colonial Wars

Chapter 6

Second time for fun on the Citadel

Marc and his team were recons, that's what they had trained and worked for, that's what they were supposed to do, so their current assignment felt like unjustified punishment. It had nothing to do with Liara, she was actually a very nice person, she mostly just followed them and didn't do or need much. She followed them to the Spirits training facilities and even participated on the shooting range, scoring good results with her pistol, which was nicknamed 'peashooter' by Häckin.

"Nice Liara, but still not even closely enough for a marksman badge." Mina teased Liara a little bit and the Asari decided to show her other abilities. She waved her hand, which started to emit a strange blue glow, at Mina and she suddenly stopped moving, frozen mid motion.

"This is called stasis, a biotic technique which makes it impossible for the target to move." She explained and then waved at Mina again, releasing her. Slightly dazed and a bit disorientated, the young woman needed a few moments before she replied

"Never do that again. Stasis tubes are worse enough." Liara just grinned at her and the remaining Recons decided that they had no desire to find out about the Asaris other biotic abilities, at least not as the target of those skills.

"Don't worry, I'll only use that to protect you guys. As long as you don't give me a reason to use it against you." For a moment the team was relieved, but Marc found something off setting about this.

"Protect us ? Where do you want to protect us ?" he asked and now Liara seemed a little bit flustered and she stuttered a little bit, as she replied.

"Well, you are supposed to protect me and you are combat unit, so I thought that we might get into combat, not that I want any combat, it's horrible." She realized that she should stop talking, since eight eyes were now looking at her and all of them were visibly confused.

"You are a civilian, a peashooter and biotics don't chance that. Our job is to keep you safe and to keep you company, as long as you are on board of a UNSC ship. I have no intention in brining you along, in case we have an actual recon or combat mission, Liara." Marc made his point clear, this was a point he would not give in, unless he was ordered by the Major or by Captain Cutter to do so.

"Of course, I understand, I'm sorry." Liara now mumbled and turned away heading for her quarter, while the team gave their leader a disapproving look.

"Really smooth lieutenant, we can be lucky if she leaves her room for the next six months." Daiki complained to Marc, as he and the others also packed their things together and left the shooting range.

"What was I supposed to say ?" Marc was puzzled by this, he had done nothing wrong and all he cared about was not having to drag a civilian through a combat zone.

Transition through the Relay went smooth, thankfully the Salarians had happily agreed to give the UNSC ships the upgrades necessary to use Relays, so the Spirits systems were not fried, as the small flotilla entered the Widow system. Well calling this place a system as a bit much, since there was nothing in it, except for the Citadel and the star.

Marcs team and Liara were on one of the training decks, as the human flotilla approached the massive space station, passing by the hundreds of warships protecting the station. Sadly for them, Spirit did not dock to the station, since even two dreadnought size docking spaces had not been enough for the ship, so any personal interested in going on "shore leave" had to use a Pelican. So, ten minutes later, Marc, his team and Liara were sitting in one of the dropships, which were now degraded to taxis.

The Asari was silent, her mood was still not good after Marcs lecture and she did not speak a word to the team and again, Marc earned some bad looks from his team, he would have to talk with her about this later. The ride to the station was quick, the Pelican was far faster and its flight far smoother than its clumsy looks would suggest.

The landing pad was already surrounded by journalists, as they left the ship, several cameras flashing and loud voices calling them. But they decided to ignore them and just made their way through the small crowd, earning several complaints from the reporters they pushed aside. Thankfully a few C-Sec officers were ready to stop the journalists, once they reached the security gate. Inside, the Marines expected problems, since they were completely armed, but the officers didn't seem to care, except for some mumbling about the 'primitiveness' of the weapons. Marcs experience with a battle rifle and turian body armor did say otherwise, but he would not start an argument over this. Still it seemed strange to them, that they would let thousands of soldiers roam the stations, with all of their weapons, somebody must had arranged this.

Once they were through, Marc had no idea what to do here, he had only been to a bar in the presidium, so what were they supposed to do here ?

For a few minutes, the small team stood in front of a map, which explained all the attractions and parts of the station and it was so much, that they had no idea what to do. So finally, after five minutes, Liara gave them some advice, breaking her silence.

" There are several bars in the Presidium. We could go there." The others agreed, since Marc had now remembered the Afterburn, which he remembered rather positively.

"I'm sorry Liara, if I sounded rude, but I'm a soldier and brining a civilian into a combat zone is simply out of question for me, this has nothing to do with you." Marc now apologized to Liara, as they entered the elevator, they were alone since the one before had only had room left for three.

"Don't worry. It's no problem, I was just a little bit surprised. Everything's alright." She smiled slightly at him and Marc returned the smile, before her smile turned into a grin and she said :

"Well, but paying me a drink is still necessary.". Both now started to laugh, still Liara was dead serious and they gained several, much saying looks from the rest of the team, once they left the elevator.

"Well, no Firepit, but still alright." Häckin commented, as they entered the Afterburn. The Firepit was the illegal bar some soldiers had opened in the Spirit of Fire, where they sold some really evil stuff, distilled out of fermented rations, the only positive side of this stuff was that it didn't make you blind and for some reason Marc was sure that Cutter was well aware of the pit.

The same bartender was still behind the counter of the Afterburn, but neither did he recognize Marc, nor did he seem to care much about seeing humans in his bar. Marc ordered five black beers for his group and it tasted as good and strong as he remembered it. In difference to last time, only a few people seemed to be surprised to see them, Marc had heard that Marines from the embassy came here sometimes.

"Humans normally don't drink black beer, you're the first human who ordered it in the last 4 years." The barkeeper asked, as Marc took another sip and then replied with grin.

"Well, I was one of them who ordered it back then." For a moment the Batarian looked at him, all of his four eyes open in surprise, then he started to laugh and reached out to pat Marc on the shoulder, saying

"You're that kiddo who accompanied Staff Sergeant Johnson back then, seems like you got promoted." Marc kept on smiling, while the others just looked at him in surprise.

"You never heard about this ? Staff Sergeant Johnson, the legend who broke the arm of a turian marine while arm-wrestling, won against an Asari Commando and scored a tie against a freaking Krogan. He's a legend here." The barkeeper explained loudly and several other guest started to mumble, while Marc became slightly uncomfortable, as all eyes now seemed to rest on him.

"Yeah, the Staff Sergeant is great, but sadly I haven't seen him since then." Marc mumbled, as the barkeeper gave him another drink, on the house this time.

Thankfully, there were no problems with alien soldiers this time, the few turian marines present simply ignored them and the other guest were civilians not really caring. Problems between humans and aliens had actually changed a lot, since Marcs last time on the Citadel. While Turians and Humans had had problems in the beginning, this had mostly changed, since turian and human marines actually came along very well, once they didn't point guns at each other. Salarians, as long as they were not STG, had never had any problems with humans, the new problematic relationship was that with the Asari. Many Asari leader blamed humanity for the changed political and economic climate, for the massive increase in military spending and the destruction of their 'peaceful era'.

Because of that, most Asari businesses and Hanar and Elcor were at least skeptical about humanity, thankfully this wasn't the case with Liara, at least she hadn't shown any disapproval of humans.

After some time, they left the bar again, heading for a café Liara had suggested, since they were all starving. Luckily, the Volus and UEG had established an exchange rate between Citadel and UN Credits, so their bank accounts were actually worth something.

"Human, let me tell you about our prothean lords." A Hanar preacher approached the group, as they were having lunch, but was ignored by everybody, they all knew religious preachers all too well.

"Let me tell you how our prothean lords will bring humanity back to the righteous path, away from their wars and into the embrace of peace." The 'jelly-fish' went on, now starting to unnerve the group, so Daiki replied.

"Please, miss," Liara had thankfully signaled him that he was talking to a she, " We are trying to have a peaceful meal and none of us is interested in your religion. Could you please try to convert somebody who is not busy ?" for a moment the Hanar looked at her, obviously surprised, before she turned away and after a few seconds started to rant about the mistakes and horrible end that would reach humanity, if they didn't change their ways.

"Are there many of these people here ?" Häckin asked after a few minutes and Liara shook her head in response " No, most people respect the culture and religion of other species, but there are always those who don't". Thankfully the Hanar stayed their only unwanted visitor, but only a few minutes later they got more company, but this time it was far more pleasant.

An ODST, in full armor and with a closed visor approached them, in a casual matter and it took them a moment to notice that the man was heading for them.

"Can we help you comrade ? Lost your unit, helljumper ?" Marc asked, but the soldier only laughed and then replied "No farm boy, just wanted to see what you and your squad are doing." His voice was slightly distorted by the helmet, but Marc still recognized his old friends voice.

"John, you god dam crazy asshole." Marc jumped up and slightly hugged his old friend, how directly teased in return "Bradley, you could have wrote me something if you missed me that much, I can feel you friend down there pocking me ." but Marc only laughed and replied with a short 'Fuck you' before he turned back his team and introduced Shepard.

"This is 2nd lieutenant John Shepard, an old friend from my academy days and the most infamous ladies man I ever knew." Shepard was clearly not happy about Marcs last word, but while the Recon knew that both Mina and Liara could take care of themselves, he just wanted to make sure.

"Nice to meet you John." Liara was the first to also greet Shepard and after a few more greetings, Marc could finally ask the question he was burning for.

"Did they station you in the embassy ? Or were you unlucky enough to end up in this little flotilla ?" Shepard only grinned about this question, as he sat down and answered.

"I'm stationed on the Hammerhead. Got two whole companies stationed on that monster, but I'm not the only one here. Jane got the command over one of the frigates and Lasky is a bridge officer on the Spirit." For a moment Marc was euphoric, having one of his old friends on the Spirit was great but then he started to wonder : Why hadn't he seen Lasky on the bridge ?

"But Lasky, that idiot got sick after a few days on the ship and is still sitting in the med bay, with diarrhea from hell." Yep, that explained everything. Marc had not been able to keep up with his friends, since he had come to Reach and started training. In the Recon training facilities, the trainees had no possibilities to use Mil-net or any other form of communication and during his time in 'purgatory', administrative cluster-fuck had prevented him from any communication outside the city.

All he had been able to do was sending a message back home to Harvest, after he had come to the Spirit, so he had had no idea where his friends had been stationed and what they were doing.

"It's been the same with me," Shepard said, after Marc had explained the situation and why they hadn't heard of each other " during ODST training communication with the outside world was very limited, but once I was done, Lasky gave me an upgrade about the situation. My sister is now a lieutenant-commander and has her own bucket and Sam and his wife are both stationed in an army garrison on Sigma Octanus." "Wife ?!" Marc nearly chocked on his drink after the news about Sam and May, he knew that they had stayed a couple after the academy, but he had never expected them to be this serious, considering they were both only 21.

"Yeah, married couples get a special treatment, so Sammie and his sweetheart wasted no time. They now happily live in their slightly larger cabin on Sigma Octanus and each of them commands a platoon." Shepard went on, while everybody laughed about Marc, who was still struggling to breath. Still, Marc was incredibly happy that Shepard was also in the flotilla, at least during shore leave like today he could be with his old friend, maybe they could even get Lasky with them, once he wasn't shitting out his soul anymore.

But, there was a little doubt in the back of his mind, something was strange here. This was supposed to be a prestigious deployment, a multi-species maneuver meant to improve cooperation between the Citadel and the UNSC, a way to increase humanities prestige. So why? Why did seem, like there were so many young and unexperienced soldiers present? Even Jane was just 30 and one of the youngest ship captain in history, why would they risk embarrassment through such young officers?

But for now Marc didn't really care about this, his mood was good and he wouldn't ruin it with these ideas. After a few more minutes, several of Shepards ODST comrades joined them, ODSTs and Marines were literally the only ones in the UNSC getting along, so the atmosphere was relaxed and the Recons were pretty annoyed, as they received a priority message from Cutter. They and Liara were supposed to come to C-Sec headquarter, some sort of important appointment they had to attend.

They excused themselves, but not before Shepard put Marc aside for a moment and asked "So Mina or Liara, which of them is your type buddy ? We still got to make a man out of you.". Marc was slightly annoyed by this, but he also knew his old friend "Not interested. And I was already a man before I went to the academy, but it ended with my car on fire."

They now left, the way to C-Sec was not that far away, but again it took a ride in the ridiculous slow elevators, hell a ride in freaking orbital elevator took only a little bit longer than these things. A few asari officer looked at them bewildered as they entered the large attic, where they were directly greeted by major Hennson, who was accompanied by two turians. Marc and his squad saluted the officer, who told them to relax and then introduced them to the Turians.

"Lieutenant, these are the Specters Nihlus Kryik and Spectre Garrus Vakarrian." Marc and his greeted the Turians, who seemed at least neutral towards the human soldiers.

"Now, that everybody is present, we can finally start." Nihlus now started, while the Recons and Liara were still confused about the situation. " By Captain Cutters recommendation, Specter Garrus Vakarian will accompany Recon team Sierra for the duration of the maneuvers, to deepen and improve relations between the Specters and the UNSC. During this time he will be under Captain Cutters command and will act as a member of Recon team Sierra, as a commanding officer, equal to 2nd lieutenant Bradley." Alright, now that was something that nearly caused Marc to protest, maneuver and cooperation was good and nice, but he was supposed to share command over three soldiers with that Turian ? Was he supposed to be an alien babysitter ? First Liara and now that Garrus. But he was able to hold that back and kept himself under control, only nodding and agreeing to what both Nihlus and Hennson had to say, he was too low in the food chain to argue.

Marc was not good at reading turian facial expressions, but he could tell that Garrus was not too happy about this situation, something that made him very sympathetic.

"Alright lieutenant, you might want to show the Spirit to our visitor, I still have something to discuss with the Specters, so you and your team are dismissed." Great, so much for his shore leave on the Citadel, but well order was order, so Marc and his team, now six people all in all, made their way to the nearest hangar bay, while Marc radioed in a taxi.

"You don't have to come back to Spirit with us, Liara. We'll only show our new friend his cabin, tell the Captain about it and take the next taxi back to the station." Marc offered to the Asari, but she only shock her head, she was supposed to accompany them and she was eager to find out as much as she could about humanity and its customs.

Garrus didn't talk much, just a few short answers to trivial questions, which didn't change when they entered there 'taxi'. This was dumb, they would now fly back to the Spirit, a trip which would take nearly an hour, then they would go to the captain and even though Cutter surely already knew about Vakarrian, they would introduce him. Then they would show him his quarter and then, then they would fly back to the Citadel, to enjoy what was left of their shore leave.

Garrus stayed silent while they entered the Spirit and only replied with a few words as the Captain greeted him, while Marc scanned the bridge for Lasky, but it seemed like he was still sick. Finally, Garrus broke his silence as they entered the turians new cabin, which was, seems like somebody wanted to make Marc go nuts, right next to Liaras cabin, which was directly next to Marcs.

Was somebody trying to set him up, to start fraternizing with the aliens ?

"Let me be honest to you, lieutenant." Garrus said, as he inspected the surely not turian-fitting bed "I'm a very new Specter, I'm still a trainee, to be honest. Councilor Tevos used her influence to send me here, it's supposed to be an insult against you, you come here for cooperation and we send the youngest Specter available." Well, seemed like the UNSC wasn't the only one sending their youngest to this maneuver.

"Thank you, Specter Vakarrian. Like you could guess, I'm also a rather young, just finished my training a few weeks ago, to be honest. Let's just try to do our jobs and not shoot the doctor by accident." Marc now offered his hand to the Turian, who took and showed what could count as a turian smile, before replying.

"I think we will get along, lieutenant. And please, it's Garrus, that will make things far easier."

"Well, then I am Marc for you. We still got a few hours until our taxi flies back to the Citadel. Want to do a few rounds on the shooting range ?" Now Garrus smiled, off that Marc was sure and the Turian replied

"Well, it won't be a problem to be better than you, considering how ancient your guns are." Alright, now it was on, Marc had to kick this Turians but, nobody would insult his beloved Ellie. Yes, Marc calls his battle rifle Ellie and the name of his pistol is Maggie.

The shooting range on the Spirit was about 150 meters long, so the targets were 100 meters away, normal human torsos, maximum point for hits on the heart and forehead.

Three hours and over one thousand rounds of ammo later, Marc had to admit defeat, close but it in the end he lost 25 to 28, well at least he wouldn't have to pay him a drink on the Spirit.

"Didn't you say something about returning to the Citadel ? This ship sure is immense but I wouldn't want to spend my shore leave here." Garrus asked, after they had finished cleaning their weapons and Marc agreed, as great as this ship was, shore leave was meant to be spend away from it.

"Yeah, but I'd like to pay a short visit to the med bay first, you'll find the way back to the hangar yourself, right ?" the Turian didn't seem to like this idea, but Marc didn't give him a chance to object, since he had already left the shooting range and was on his way.

"Great, still got no map of the ship on my Omni-tool, can't be that hard." Garrus mumbled, it was just one and half kilometers to the hangar, after all.

Marc on the other hand only needed five minutes to reach the med bay, thankfully Lasky didn't have anything contagious, so it was possible to visit him, even unannounced. "Ensign Thomas J. Lasky, are you faking sickness to avoid duty again ?" Lasky nearly got an hearth attack, he had had been half asleep and listening to music and as Marc hammered on his back from behind, hw threw his music player at Marc. The Marine dodged the projectile, which hit the wall behind him and shattered. "Well, must have been a really bad playlist Lasky, poor little thing.".

It took Lasky until now, to realize that it was actually Marc, who stood in front of him, but now he laughed and shook his friends hand, happily. "Shepard told me that you are on the Spirit, too. But I thought you were on that alien station for the next few days, already sick of sexy, blue alien chicks ?" Marc also grinned, of course, even after he had gotten a girlfriend back then, Lasky had always had had a "fascination" for Asari. "Yeah, I was on the Citadel, but I was send back to the Spirit to introduce one of our new passengers to the Captain. We now got a Turian and a Asari on board and me and my team are supposed to take care of them." Yes this sentence had the effect Marc had expected, now Lasky wanted to know every minor detail about Liara and even tried to talk down one of the nurses, to get out of the med bay, which failed.

"You got to get her to the bridge, once I'm out of here. I can't wait to see an actual, live Asari." Lasky now seemed a little bit desperate, like a school boy hoping to find his fathers porn collection.

"We both know that you already saw more than enough Asari 'videos', buddy. It was nice seeing you again, but I got to get back to the Citadel now. We got to get a drink in the Firepit later." Marc now left again, as a nurse handed Lasky the sorry remains of his music player, now it would get even more boring.

The detour had taken him an hour in total, so he was surprised that Garrus wasn't already waiting for him at the Pelican and the Crew chief had not seen the Turian either. In the end it took two hours and half a company of Marines to find Garrus, since asking Serina for help was out of question, she would sell them out to the Captain. When they found the Turian, he had already walked over six kilometers and was still nowhere near to the hangar.

"This stays between us and the others, right ?" Garrus asked, as their Pelican finally left for the Citadel again, but all Marc could do was shrugging his shoulders, a story like this always spread around the ship like a wildfire. It was already getting late, there were no days or nights on a ship or even on the Citadel, but Marc was already on his feet for over sixteen hours and it slowly started to show. Thankfully the ride to the Citadel was smooth, so he could take a short nap, but Garrus seemed slightly traumatized after that, commenting on the noises the human did in his sleep.

" Thank god that we Turians don't have noses like you or the Asari." Marc was still a little bit groggy, so he needed a moment to realize what the alien meant and to answer "Well, I may make horrible sounds in my sleep, but at least I look good, in difference to others present here."

Garrus laughed about this, yes by human standards Turians were not a sight to behold, not that the Turians thought different about humans, every species believed themselves to be the most attractive, well except for the Asari, for some reason everybody likes the Asari.

This time the landing pad on the Citadel was far more quiet, no reporter wanted to annoy them and Garrus Spectre rank made entering far more easy. They quickly made their way to the place, where they would meet the others, the rest of the teams and Liara were relaxing in the Presidium, not Garrus or Marcs favorite place on the Citadel, but well, could be worse. But, when they reached the place, they had to admit that it was rather peaceful, a slightly remote balcony with several benches and tables on it, no bar or café, just a place to relax.

"Lt, are you finally done introducing our new guest to the ship ? " Häcking greeted them, before Garrus introduced himself. "I would appreciate it, if we could drop formalities right from the start, we'll have to get along for the next few months, so I'm Garrus." Garrus was probably one of the only people who could sound formal, while he told people to not be formal, but the others ignored this little fact for now and greeted the Turian. The soldiers could decide if they wanted to stay in one of the C-Sec barracks during their shore leave, since constant traveling between the Spirit and the station was simply too expensive. So, after a few more hours of talking and relaxing, it was time to call it a day. Human soldiers had to use Asari quarters, which were, thanks to similarities between the two species, comfortable for them. The next few days were peaceful, thankfully, the higher ranks were still busy organizing the last parts of the planned maneuvers, so the soldiers could relax and enjoy the pleasures of the Citadel, some more than others. Marc and his team still mostly enjoyed the fact that they could eat something else than Moa, after one year of Moa diet, it had taken them weeks, until everything stopped tasting like these good dam birds.

"So, let me get that straight. ODSTs volunteer to get fired onto planets, in small metal cans and are proud of this fact ? Are you sure that these guys are not lobotomized during their first day of training ? No sentient being with any will to life would ever do something that stupid." Garrus asked, the idea of an ODST was still crazy to him and most other aliens they meet.

"Can't tell you for sure that you that they're not lobotomized, Shepard was never the brightest light bulb, so it's hard to notice if anything changed after his training." The others laughed about this comment, Lasky, who had finally stopped shitting waterfalls, was also with them and could agree that Shepards self-sustaining drive had never been this strong to begin with. Thankfully Lasky obsession with the Asari had lessened a little after he got to know Liara, although he still looked at her slightly strange from time to time. But he mostly behaved otherwise, so Liara only felt a little bit flattered by this, she was still very young by Asari standards and not used to getting this kind of attention. Sadly for them, this meeting was interrupted by a priority message from the ship, Cutter had ordered all personal back to the ship, it was time to start the maneuver.

"Well, couldn't last forever." Daiki said, as they made their way back to the landing pad, where a pelican was already waiting for them. It had been a nice time on the station, but this was not the reason they were here, most of them were soldiers and they would, for the next few months, do what soldiers did best, fight and kill, even if just simulated.

"Are you still sure that you want to accompany us, Liara ? Maneuvers are pretty boring, especially fleet maneuvers, nothing for an archaeologist like you." Marc offered to the young Asari, but she rejected the notion, she had volunteered for this after all.

"Oh, I think this is will be very interesting for me."

Chapter 6

End

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Codex entry #1023948910

Military strength in comparison :

Over the last five years, the military balance of power within Citadel space has massively changed. First, with the appearance of humanity on the galactic stage, the previously existing balance of power has been destroyed, humanities massive amount of dreadnought sized warships has weakend the Treaty of Farix to the point where it is nearly useless.

Additionally, both the Turians and the Salarians have massively increased their military spending, constructing hundreds of new warships, while the Asari have ignored any calls for military build up in the last years.

Today, in the year 2531, the Asari Republics fleet is considered the weakest, even below that of the UNSC, they have not build any dreadnoughts in the last five years and have not kept pace with the massive improvements the other races have made to their ships.

The UNSC/UEG is considered the third largest military power today, its fleet slightly smaller than that of the Asari, but with many times more dreadnoughts and carriers.

The Salarian Union comes in second, having the second largest and by now most advanced fleet, but the large investments into upgrades and tech still slows their numerical build up.

The Turian Hierachy is the undisputed military superpower in Citadel space, their fleet is more than twice the size of the Salarians and their army has more manpower than all other three great powers combined. But, the Turians face one problem, their incredible build up has left their economy dangerously close to collapse and even with Volus support, many doubt how long the Turians could keep up their forces, without risking an economic breakdown.

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Authors note:

Alright Chapter 6 done, finally stuff will start to get done next chapter. Yes until now mostly build up and character introduction, but the story will start to develope with the next chapters. Most important characters are in place and some more will join over the course of the story.

Again thanks for every review and every view.

tobiisagoodboy94 out.


	8. Chapter 7: Bastonge

Authors Note : Did it really happen ? Did I actually sat down, took time I should ahve spend learning for exams and wrote a new chapter. Yes, yes I did.

Just don't expect too much action and have fun.

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Chapter 7

Bastonge

The Paris-class frigate raced through the emptiness of space, heading for its target, which was only a small point of light. The ships engines were running at the absolute maximum, just like the compensators and any other system responsible for moving the ship though normal space. "The enemy is charging the main gun." One bridge officer screamed out, they were facing a cruiser and were, for the moment, totally outranged. But their captain was still calm, or at least she tried to appear as calm as possible.

"Calculate the projectiles line of fire and once the main gun fires, fire our thrusters will maximum power to evade. Keep on firing the thruster in a random pattern to evade further shots afterwards." The officers did as ordered, as the numbers on one of the bridges main monitors dwindle further and further, only forty seconds till they were in MAC range. Everybody held on to their seats as the thrusters started to throw around the ships to make it hard to target. The first shots missed them, but with every second the distance between both ships reduced and soon there wouldn't be enough time for evasion. Finally, the sixth shot scratched the armour plates of the ship, shaking it heavily, but the armour held. A Paris-Class had one meter strong armour plates and thankfully they were present, since the eighth shot put an 90 cm deep dent into them.

"Atmosphere leaking on several decks, not serious damage but several crewmen are wounded. Closing bulkheads now." The XO explained, as they finally reached their own maximum range, while the cruiser now started to fire torpedoes, but on this range the frigates close range defence systems had no problem with stopping them. "Alright, fire all Archers at once and then the MAC, make sure the round impacts half a second before the rockets." The Captain ordered and a second later, the frigates own fire show started, 40 rockets raced towards the cruiser and a few seconds later the MAC round was fired and raced forward. Another shoot from the cruisers main gun hit the ship, perfectly into its hangar, tearing a large hole into the ship and throwing it of course.

"Hangars gone, major casualties, shot almost reached the main reactor and several secondary explosions caused additional damages. MAC gun no longer responds and 12 Archers pods are cold." Damage control reported, they had lost most of their fire power and while the remaining pods still spat out as many rockets as they could, they could only hope that their round would hit. They had fired one MAC round and 2 full salvos of Archer missiles, but they needed the MAC round to at least drop the cruisers barriers. Sadly they never reached their target, since the simulation was terminated, once the computers decided that the damage suffered by the frigate was too much. They had lost.

"Good job everybody, but sadly the Turians got us this time." The skipper, Lieutenant Commander Jane Sheppard, told her crew, as they returned to business as usual, while their foreign guest started to talk to their boss. "Indeed, your tactic was rather interesting Lieutenant Commander Shepard, a few more seconds and you could have destroyed that cruiser. You did the best you could with your limited technology." Garrus commented on the mock battle that had just happened. He wasn't a naval expert but he enough to understand what had happened. He also felt the atmosphere of disappointment on the ships bridge now, they had come so close, just to fail.

Still, he had to admit that the Bastonge was a fine ship and her crew, although most of them were very young, was doing a good job. Jane Sheppard seemed to be aware off this, always showing a little bit off pride while her crew wasn't listening or watching, but also making sure they wouldn't start slacking off. Compared to Citadel tech many of the systems they used were only primitive, to put it nicely. While their main guns were powerful and massive, their rockets were still using chemical propulsion and were only dangerous in absolute masses. Their slip-space engines may give them operational ranges beyond anything a Citadel ship could hope, but at the same time they're ships had no barriers, so they only had their massive armour plating to protect them, even their point defences relied on projectiles instead of lasers.

And that's not even considering the ground forces. Their weapons were effective enough, but compared to a standard Turian soldier or an Asari commando, UNSC Marines and Army troopers were light infantry at best. The barriers they got now were a joke and they could be lucky if their armour stopped more than one bullets. Still or maybe even because of these disadvantages, they had proven to be a tough opponent for the troops facing them. They used fast and small, decentralized units, which, if needed, could form a larger force with heavy support within an incredibly short amount of time. More than once Asari Commando teams had been hunting down small groups of Marines, just to suddenly be encircled by a whole company with armoured support. Battlefield mobility and local superiority were the key elements of their fighting style, similar to how the regular salarian army fought.

"Your troops are doing a good job, many high ranking officers in the Turian military had expected you to fail completely." Garrus commented again and Jane Sheppard only nodded her head in agreement, of course she was a USNC officer, so she wouldn't admit that they still were mostly getting hammered in the simulations. Still, the professional inside of her also knew how bad their chances would be in a prolonged war, yes they were strong but if they had to hold their stretched out colonies with their current forces it would be really hard, if not impossible.

There had been a few problems with Asari protesters, a few civilian ships had tried to interrupt the simulations and several Asari frigates were constantly shadowing them, but everybody just decided to ignore them and do business as usual. "I'm just happy that I don't have any ONI agents on my ship, Spectre Vakarian, imagine the STG on steroids, then you're pretty close to them." Yes, of course Garrus had heard enough about the infamous Office of Naval Intelligence, the UNSC intelligence agency which had its fingers in almost everything and everybody's business. Marc had told him about his meeting with an, how he described, smoking hot female agent that tried to charm him and Garrus wasn't sure if Marc had really not told her everything he knew about Garrus, thanks to being under the influence of his hormones.

He now took his leave and went back to the quarters of the Marines detachment. Thankfully Sheppard had not given him any escorts, a sign of trust, but also not necessary, since he was sure that the ships AI was constantly monitoring him. Oh yes, the UNSCs AI, the thing that still caused so much uproar in the Citadel, there were actually dozens of Quarian demonstrators sitting in C-Sec cells, for trying to storm the human embassy on the Citadel. However Garrus himself had come to terms with this situation rather easily, while Serena had her antics she was also very helpful and he would never doubt her loyalty to humanity. So his point of view on the problem had shifted, seeing the UNSC AI and Geth as something completely different. Many would disagree with this opinion, but why should he care about this, he was a Spectre after all, so he had much more free space in most topics.

The "Bastonge", the Paris-Class frigate he was currently on board off, was of course far smaller than the Spirit of Fire, still by Citadel standard the label "frigate" was a massive understatement, this would have easily been called a cruiser in the Hierachy and a massive one at that. Citadel ships were built around their spinal mounted main guns, just like their UNSC counterparts, but a UNSC MAC gun was just gigantic by comparison, hell it fired a small building made of tungsten and uranium at its opponents. So, due to the massive size of the main gun and the large arsenals for the dozens of rocket silos on the ship, there was about the same space on this ship as on a normal cruiser.

Garrus had now reached the Marines contingent barracks on board the ship and he would swear that he could already hear Marc, who was banging his head against the wall. Yes, Liara had also come with them and Captain Cutter had been nice enough to borrow Marc's team to the Bastonge and the young officer from Harvest hadn't liked this at all. They had been crammed into the ship, which already had two full companies of Marines on board, so they all had to share the two small rooms they had gotten. All the males in one and the "girls" in the other. Garrus hunch about Marc trying to break his skull turned out wrong, he and the other two members of his squad were sitting around the small table, playing some card game Marc knew from his school days.

"So how did the simulation go ?" Marc asked, but he didn't really care about it. Theoretically Marc was one of the commanding officers on board the ship, since the Recons were a part, but also not really a part of the Marines. So he was the commanding officer of one of the ship sub-units, but he actually couldn't give less of a flying fart about this, he only joined the meetings he had to and for the moment did as little as he could. Marc was a good soldier, yes, but even he got pissed about being "misused" , like he had thought to himself many times already, he was a Recon, not a glorified babysitter. And while he enjoyed both Garrus and Liaras company, this didn't change the fact that his mood was bad because of this. Thankfully doing as little as possible was currently his only way to let his steam off, so he was good company.

"What are the girls doing ? Scared them away ?" Garrus asked and Daiki, who had just lost, answerd, after throwing his cards on the table.

"Liara grabbed Mina half an hour ago, asking for her opinion on something. Haven't heard anything from them since then. Wanna join ?" Marc answered, as Garrus took the fourth seat and Hakin gave out a new round of cards. The game was rather simple, but you could fit a few rounds of it in a short break and it was rather enjoyable. Since the Recon team was a rather small unit, after all they were four soldiers, one officer, one NCO and two privates, there wasn't much distance between the four soldiers. Yes normally Marc had his own room and ate in the officer mess, but Garrus had till now never seen Marc pull his rank in any situation. Well, he liked this situation more than the years off service in the hierarchical and stiff Turian military.

The simulation was finally over and after enduring the smug satisfaction off her victorious opponent for almost half an hour, Jane was finally in her private quarter and could get some rest. It was now "night time" on the ship, her XO was currently on the bridge commanding, so Jane could get some well earned rest. She had already removed most of her uniform, with only pants and the grey undershirt on and was skipping through some news feeds, as a priority transmission filled the display of her private terminal. She took the call and was greeted by Captain Andersons face, who, after a single moment of surprise, said, with a slight, boyish grin on his face " Lieutenant Commander Shepard, I hope I didn't interrupt anything.".

Jane shook her head slightly, before she answered "No sir, I was just keeping up with the news before bed time, how can I help you sir ?" Jane held back a yawn, she had a stressful 20 hours day behind her, but even though Anderson belonged to the more lenient and open officer of the navy, she didn't want to seem unpolite towards the second in command of the whole flotilla.

"I'll make it as short as possible then. High Com send us some new orders and we are to send a ship to the 'Independent Colonies' that were founded in the Traverse. Nothing major just some saying hello and showing some presence there. We don't want to overkill the situation, which is why the Spirit, The Aachen and my own ship are out of question, just like the destroyers."

Jane could guess where this was going, but still she listened to the older officer carefully. She was of course always up to date with the deployment of the other ships in the flotilla, so she could easily put together what came next.

"Of our frigates, only your ship is not already planned away in any exercises for the next few weeks. So me, Rear-Admiral Shepard and Captain Cutter decided that your ship will take over this mission. This is especially fitting, since and Spectre Vakarrian are already on board of your ship and will probably be more than happy to join you in this mission." There was a short pause, before Jane finally answered, just for good measure, in difference to her younger brother she actually understood such social norms very good.

"Are we to move out immediately, sir ?" she asked Anderson returned "No, we will stock up your ship with some additional provisions, fuel and ammo, just in case. This should all be finished in about 12 hours. Than you are to move out. Don't worry about giving any orders, you're XO is already informed and will take care of everything. I just wanted to inform you personally."

Jane appreciated this gesture from the Captain, calling her personally before she went to sleep was better for her, than getting surprised by it after waking up or, at worst, getting woken up in the middle of the night.

"Thank you Captain, I appreciate that. Is there anything else I need to be informed about ?" she asked, with her vision slowly blurring, as the sleepiness started to dull her senses.

"No Lieutenant Commander, that should be everything. I wish you a good night." With these words the transmission was cut and the news feed had been watching returned. Something about tensions because of a Spectre sniffing around in UNSC space, but she was too tired to watch it. She turned of the terminal and, stumbling through her now dark room, she quickly fell asleep on her bed.

The mood on board the ship changed, once it became public where they would head soon. UNSC soldiers were mostly professionals, of course there were always a few slackers and trouble makers, like there are always. Still, they couldn't completely hide the disgust or better said the annoyance many of them had about visiting these independent colonies. Officially those were just "settlers seeking independence", but every single person in all of UEG space knew that these were for the most part former rebels and insurrectionists, most likely many of them once fought and killed UNSC personal.

Jane Sheppard, Liara and Garrus were now sitting in the small conference room of the ship, they were discussing the situation, it was clear that nobody wanted to start any war between the UNSC and the independent colonies.

"You can imagine how it would end if I went down there with a platoon of Marines, best situation is they don't shoot us on sight." Jane said and Garrus nodded, while Liara sat there, silently listening to them.

"The Independent Colonies, or System Alliance, how they call themselves, are obviously no friends of the UEG. But they haven't shown any aggressions towards the Citadel, they could allow us on the planet and maybe even let us talk with them. If we are lucky they maybe even let Second Lieutenant Bradley and his team come with us, he could be your ambassador in this situation." Jane looked at Garrus slightly bewildered for a few moments, she was obviously thinking about what he said and wasn't comfortable with it.

"Sending a Second Lieutenant as an ambassador is a bit unorthodox, but after all this is only supposed a symbolic visit, us showing our flag. So HIGH COM won't skin me alive for this. What is your position on this Miss T'soni ?" Liara almost winced a little as Jane addressed her, she had almost stopped listening to them and needed a few moment to order her thoughts again. What was her position on this ? She had no real idea herself, she was just here because her mother and her allies want to show the humans that not all Asari believe them to be warmongering monsters. She was just here to play nice and be friendly to everybody, not to make any decisions.

"If you believe so Lieutenant Commander. This is mostly a UEG operation, so I'll only stick around with the ground team." Yes, very smooth, Liara thought to herself, if they were paying just as little attention as herself they might not even had noticed her slight stutter and insecurity. Not even mentioning that her words hadn't made really any sense. Luckily for her Garrus and jane only nodded slightly, before the meeting ended. Shepard headed back to the bridge, while Liara accompanied Garrus to break the news to Marc. She really wondered how the young soldier would react to becoming an 'ambassador', she gave mental breakdown or desertion the highest probability.

600 bullets spend and a slightly deformed pistol was his actual reaction, spending several hours on the shooting range of the ship seemed to at least stop Marc from blowing out his own brain. There were only few decision and events in his life that Marc regretted, but he slowly started to doubt if it was actually luck that he had been part of the first contact with the Citadel. Maybe just signing up in a random UNSC boot camp and becoming and NCO would have made his life much easier than this. No, he reminded himself, he was lucky to be in this, he got the chance to become an officer and if he didn't mess up this whole operation could be really helpful for his future career. Also, Garrus and Liara were fun to have around and he had been incredibly lucky that even some of his old friend were with him in this place.

'Yes' he told himself 'calm down, you're a soldier and those are your orders' he had finally calmed down again, but there was still some little voice jumping around in his head, asking him how often he would tell this himself until he finally broke. But this wasn't his current problem, he gave back the almost overheated weapon, earning an angry look from the weapon master. Yes, he just had to fight through this and see the bright side, than this could become a really good chance for him to quickly climb up the ranks. He just had to make sure that he wouldn't get shot by the very first independent settler he met.

On the Spirit of Fire, the commanding officers of the training operation held a large meetings. Read Admiral Shepard and Captain Anderson represented the human side, a General Victus from the Turian Hierachy and the Salarian Admiral Valor complemented the small group, each of them also accompanied by their assistant. Captain Cutter was also present, since it was his ship and he was after all the third in command of the UNSC flotilla.

"Ladies and gentlemen, to start off, I have to admit that I've been impressed by everybody's performance throughout the last few weeks. All participants have shown high levels of professionalism and until now these operations have been highly sucsessful." All present officers nodded in agreement to the Rear-Admiral praise, but it wasn't really surprising, all the three factions had sent their best ships to make a good as possible impression on their allies. Helen Shepard took a few moment, inspecting the expressions of each of the present officers, but each of them was professional enough not to show any emotions. She sighed a little, before she went on.

"All High Commands were satisfied with our performances. But enough praise, let's get to business. As you all already know the Bastonge and with her Spectre Vakarian and Dr. T'Soni will leave the flotilla in a few hours, to head to the independent colonies. Lieutenant Commander Indurisos frigate Bengazi will take its position for the next few weeks. We have just finished half of all planned simulation and operations and are right on schedule, hopefully this little change of plans won't cause any problems." Again Helen Shepard earned a round of nods from the other officers, before the Turian general Victus started

"Thank you Rear-Admiral, sadly I have some rather disturbing information from Palaven Command. There have been several reports of destroyed trading ships in the Terminus. Officially these attacks are blamed on pirates, but we have concrete evidence that it was somebody else." Several pictures now appeared on everybody's Omni-Tool and shook was visible on the faces of the present soldiers. The ships were destroyed, no they were annihilated, nothing normal pirates would do. Pirates wanted profit, they wanted the cargo of the ships they attacked, getting any cargo out of these wrecks however seemed highly unlikely.

"If you zoom in on the pictures you will also note the disturbing part of this information, these damages were not caused by mass drivers or even disruptor torpedoes. Not even a suicidal attack with Guardian lasers would melt a ship like this. These were done by plasma weapons." Helen sighed as the other officers started to mumble about this. She had seen pictures of the damages suffered by USNC ships during the first contact with the Covenant, they were almost identical to those she saw now.

A hit by a mass driver tore apart people and ships, like a hammer or a rugged knife, disruptor torpedoes simply blasted away everything, Guardian lasers were normally not strong enough to melt away such large ships and nuclear weapons left nothing but dust. Yes, only plasma weapons could do such damage, and this was the worst case scenario. For the last few years they had been preparing for this, awaiting the Covenants attack, while they tried their best to gather information. They had gathered as much information as possible, but except for a few small outposts, they found nothing.

Well except for the Covenants ships, they had spotted thousands of those and every time they discovered a new class of Covenant ship, they lost faith in themselves a little more. More than five kilometres long carriers, hundreds of super-dreadnought sized ships and many more. The smallest ships they had easily qualified as a light cruiser and probably had enough fire power to crush a citadel cruiser or a UNSC frigate. It was frightening, all intelligence indicated that the Covenant fleets were far larger than anything the Citadel and Humanity could mobilize and that their technology was centuries ahead of anything they had. So why not making contact with the Covenant? Trying to broker a peace deal and prevent the probably biggest blood shed in History, maybe even share technology and enter a new era of prosperity and progress ?

Well, while some Asari had tried doing that, none of them had returned from such ventures. Some Asari leaders still tried to do that every few months, because she was sure that she would do it far better than anyone before her. Well, all the data STG and ONI had gathered suggested that diplomatic skill was nothing that could help them, since apparently every Asari envoy had been destroyed the moment they approached any Covenant ship or installation. This combined with the massive build up of what they could see of the Covenant and the frantic insults every captured Covenant soldier spit at them was a clear indication that they were not out for peace.

The fact that some Asari even had the coordinates to go to there was indicating some information leaks, but they didn't have time to worry about this. Neve before had the Covenant actually moved into Citadel space like this. The territory of the Citadel was spread across the entire galaxy, following the Mass Relays, forming islands of civilization across the galaxy, in difference to the UEG and seemingly the Covenant. They, without usage of Mass Relays and by using slip-space drives, had settled worlds directly close to their home world, forming spheres of territory in space. It was the strength and the weakness of the Citadel, the Mass Relays allowed them to send ships and troops across the galaxy in incredibly short periods of time. But at the same time, without the Relays, their "islands" were isolated, conventional Mass Effect FTL-drives had only limited range and cosumed a lot of fuel. So once a Relay fell, every world depending on it was cut off.

Hannahs thoughts had trailed off a little, as the conference went on, they had a lot to do and even if everything went how they planned, they were still likely to loose. It was simply a matter of numbers and firepower, no matter how great their strategy was, it wouldn't save them out of this situation.

"Are you ready for your ground mission, second lieutenant ?" Jane asked the young soldier, who she had called to her bridge together with Garrus and Liara. They had reached their destination half an hour ago, a simple on the border of civilized space, completely uninteresting and with no major recourse deposits, except for a small garden world they were now slowly approaching. "Yes sir." Was Marc short answer, yes he knew Jane Sheppard but she was far too many ranks above him for acting casual with her while he was on duty. He stood there at attention and internally a small voice was already counting down the seconds, having started with a million, until this mission was finally over.

"The colony is hailing us, video transmission, sir." The communication officer informed them, they had dropped out of slipspace at the edge of the system and had since then slowly approached it with sub light engines, to not cause any misunderstanding and conflict. "Put them on my screen." Jane said, as she said back down in her chair and looked at the video screen. It took a few seconds before anything appeared, but finally the face of obviously disgruntled man in the late 50s appeared. What hair he still had was white as snow and the wrinkles on his face had already turned into deep canyons, which got interrupted by several deep scars. "What is the UNSC doing here. We are an independent colony and not a part of your precious UEG, you have no right to be here." It was impossible not to notice the poison in his voice, he was obviously trying to keep himself under control, not saying what he wanted to say. But Jane Shepard showed no reaction to the mans rude words and answered.

"I am well aware off this. I was send here as an envoy to establish relations with you and your fellow colonists. We have no interest in conflict or annexing you." For half a second there was a little bit of surprise on the old mans face, he obviously had wanted to accuse her of trying to attack their sovereignty, but Jane had taken this argument from him directly. "Hmmpf, sending a warship to establish relations, why am I not surprised. Listen Miss whoever you are, we are doing fine out here, no need for contact with Earth or the UNSC, so I kindly ask you to leave this system immediately."

Jane took a deep breath, yes this was to be expected. These colonists had come here to get away from the UEG and the UNSC, of course they wouldn't welcome them with open arms. Nobody at home would blame if she stopped now, they don't want contact and as long as they didn't attack any Citadel or UEG property not even ONI would really care about them. But there was still something she could try, but if it failed she would turn her ship around and leave.

"My name is Lieutenant Commander Shepard and I am asking to please reconsider. We also have an envoy from the Citadel Council with us, who would like to establish contact with you, so please let us in." she didn't plead, she stated this with a neutral voice and it seemed to leave some impression on the man. For a minute the colonists turned of their audio and the old man talked with somebody of scream, before he returned his attention to Jane.

"Alright, Lieutenant Commander Shepard, since you probably won't leave otherwise, we allow you to send your envoys. Hold position at our world moon and send your shuttle down from there. Come one foot closer and we'll blow you out of the sky. Eden Prime out." The UNSC emblem returned as the line was cut and Jane visibly relaxed in her command chair for a moment, before she pressed herself up again and turned towards her visitors, who had silently observed the entire conversation.

"Well that went rather well, they didn't shoot at us immediately and allow a shuttle on the ground. We'll prepare an unarmed Pelican, just for good manners, so you and the Recon team can go down there within the next 30 minutes. Also…" she stopped for a second , obviously formulating something inside her mind, before going on "Second Lieutenant, I'll be giving some reinforcements to your squad, five Marines always look better than four."

"Ähm, sure Lieutenant Commander, your mission, your call." Marc answered, surprised by this. He and his team had not had that much contact with the Marines on board, this was only a temporary situation after all. "Don't worry second lieutenant, she's one of my best and will take good care of you." Jane remarked, before Marc, Liara and Garrus took their leave.

"Taking care of me ?" Marc mumbled to himself slightly confused, while his alien friends could only hardly hold back the urge to laugh.

Chapter 7 end.

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Authors Note:

So this was Chapter 7, mostly just set up, but I'll try not to take half a year for another update, hopefully... maybe... possibly... pls don't kill me.

tobiisagoodboy out


	9. Chapter 8: Give me freedom?

tobiisagoodboy94 here, finally brining a new chapter after over two months. Was busy with university, then a nasty cold took me out for over a week and then I also had a little bit of a holiday.

But enough excuses, now have some fun with the new chapter

* * *

 **Halo: Colonial War**

 **Chapter 8**

 **Give me Freedom ?**

„The situation is as follows. Over 100 000 independent colonists are down there and we want to be nice with them, even if some of them might have been Innies before, we are not here to judge them. Am I making myself clear here ?" Everybody present in the Pelican nodded dutifully, they all knew who Marc actually meant to address, while their dropship headed down towards the planets surface. Thankfully the colonists hadn't tried to shoot them down till now and Marc would have really preferred it if it stayed this way.

Liara and Garrus were no problem, they were just here as Citadel ambassador and had never had any contact with the independent colonies. Marc team wasn't a problem either, they hadn't had any combat missions, except for the one on Reach, that had anything to do with Rebels. The Marine Lieutenant Commander Shepard had attached to their team however was the problem, since she was obviously no fan of the people down on the planet. Sergeant Ashley Williams wasn't a bad person or even an unpleasant one, she had actually been rather nice to have around during their time on the Bastonge, but well. She was also a patriot, a really proud member of the UNSC, from a whole family of proud UNSC servicemen and women, and could get a really itchy trigger finger while around people that didn't fulfil her standards. Her religiousness was the least problem here, even though religions had lost most of their influence since humanity reached for the stars.

"Don't worry Lt., I'll be nice and I won't shoot any of these Innies down there." Innies was the nice description of the free colonists they had ever heard from Ash, which for the moment was enough for Marc. Why had Lieutenant Commander Shepard send her with them ? He had no idea, yes it was well known that the Skipper trusted her, but still, it was glaringly obvious that she was not good pick for this mission, hell Marc could come up with a ten page list of people better fitted for this mission. If things went to the shitters down there and he made it out alive, he could at least blame it on Ash and wouldn't immediately get shoot by the next best ONI agent or MP.

The shaking that had rocked the ship for the last few minutes had finally stopped, so Marc stood up and walking into the dropships cockpit and addressed the pilot.

"Everything alright Flight Lieutenant ? No AA guns aiming at us and no fighter jets tailing us ?" the pilot wanted to answer Marc, but before he could open his mouth, two planes raced by them and started to fly circles around them. "For a matter of fact, yes Second Lieutenant. These two have been tailing us since we entered atmosphere.". Marc ignored the slightly smug tone in the pilots voice and tried to keep and eye on the fighter planes.

"You got to be kidding me." The pilot finally said after another minute, having realized something. "Those are mother f***ing Falcons, where the hell did they find those ?" Marc needed to sort his brain for a second, the pilot couldn't mean the Falcon VTOLs, that could only mean that those were older Air Force Falcon-class attack planes. "I thought the Air Force replaced those with Skyhawks decades ago ? They must have grabbed them from some old depot or recycling centre." The pilot nodded, while he pinched his eyes to better see the planes circling them.

"Wouldn't bet on it, but these things seem heavily modified, the frame is bigger and the engines seem longer. Maybe they even modified them for space flight. But hell they're fast." The pilot explained, before ground control send them the precise location of the landing pad.

"Make sure nobody tinkers with the Pelican, but maybe try to get a look on these things. No sensitive information, just look if your ideas could be true. Them having dozens or even hundreds of space worthy fighters would surely interest HIGH COM." Marc told the pilot and while they made the final approach, they could finally see the settlement. Nothing major, maybe even a little smaller than Utgard on Harvest, at least the Utgard he knew from back them. Today Utgard was a massive metropolis with several million inhabitants, thanks to the immense USNC garrison stationed on the planet now.

This city settlement however looked different than what he knew from home. UNSC colonies had a certain style to them and even smaller colonies tended to have skyscrapers, but none of the buildings here were taller than at best 10 stories. No, apparently they had bought many pre-fab houses from Citadel factions, which explained who they had fitted the whole network of AA-guns and Onager batteries into their ships.

"Jesus Christ, that cities a fortress. They strategically spread the guns around the city, they have enough firepower to easily blow a Paris-class out of the sky." the pilot commented as they landed, from the cockpit they could already spot the armed welcome committee of at least two dozen colonists in a strange mixture of old CMA and Citadel equipment. Marc now went back to the others, informing them of the situation.

"Armed welcoming squad, these people are armed to the teeth, so watch out and don't give them a reason to shoot on us. And Sergeant…" he now focused his eyes on Ashley, who only replied with a slightly annoyed frown "don't ask them any question on how they got all their weapons. We'll leave that to ONI and try to get out of here alive, so don't give them any reason to do anything.". Garrus now also stood up, human seats were not comfortable for him anyway and the others followed him suit. The last one to stand up was Liara, she only moved once the dropship had touched down on the ground and the hatch started to open. She was to leave the ship first however, so that nobody with an itchy finger would fire on the first Marine he or she saw.

"I assume you are the Citadel envoy, Miss T'Soni, right ?" the leader of the colonists, the same older man that had contacted them earlier, addressed Liara politely, who replied with a nod and an unsecure smile.

"Welcome on Freedoms Progress. I am Colonel Davis and in charge of the Alliance Marines here:" he offered his hand to the young Asari, who returned the handshake and relaxed a little bit. The older man smiled slightly, but his face turned hard the moment his eyes fell on the five UNSC Marines leaving the dropship.

"Hmmph." Was all Davis addressed towards them at first, mustering the small groud of soldiers and checking their ranks. "Are you the security detail or where is the UEGs envoy." He finally asked in a both insulting and offended tone, which caused Marc to take a step forward, followed by Garrus.

"Second Lieutenant Bradley. The skipper and her XO didn't come, considering our relations they didn't want to risk anybody actually needed on board." Marc tried to keep his voice as neutral as possible, which thankfully wasn't that hard. He came from the Outer Colonies, he had never witnessed or been the victim of a terror attack by Innies and he could sympathize with these people on a certain level, so this was the first time, since he had signed up, that his upbringing was actually of use.

Davis seemed amused by this and after a few moments he commented, with poison dripping from his voice :" Almost ironic how fitting for the UEG this is. Sending a soldier as an envoy, since the USNC actually runs everything and then also sending a low ranking grunt, to insult us even more. I'd laugh about it if it wasn't so sad." Marc showed no reaction to this taunt, why should he ? He knew too well that the was just a low level 'grunt' and he didn't really care what the colonists thought about either the UEG or the UNSC. A short gaze over his shoulder told him that his team didn't react to any of the taunts either, but he didn't have to look at Ash to know that she was only a second away from exploding. She almost seemed to radiate an aura of rage and destruction and he had luckily already told the others to knock her down if she actually lost control.

Thankfully she didn't and after maybe half a minute Davis sighed and turned towards Liara and Garrus.

"The assembly has decided that they would meet you. We won't take either your or the USNC dogs weapons, everybody here is armed, so it's not like you could try anything dumb." He now grinned again a little, the fact that the colonists here were armed seemed to make him proud, especially considering that the UEG was rather restrictive about weapons, especially the military grade ones every single colonist seemed to carry with them. He really wouldn't want to be a policemen here, but well it was their problem, not his, so why should he care.

Davis and his men now obviously tried to ignore them as good and as much as possible, if the UEG didn't send a proper envoy, why should they care about what they had to say. The militia men now formed a circle around them and escorted them through the town. Many of the inhabitants looked at them with disgust, spited at the ground next or screamed some curses after them. They had decided to take Ash in the middle their small, with Marc in front of her and Liara and Garrus in front of them, making sure that they could keep the proud Sergeant at bay, if anything or anybody made her snap.

But she didn't and after a few minutes of silent walking they finally reached their destination, one of the larger building in the centre of the town and after Davis had went inside, the militiamen escorting them spread out a little, giving them a little more room.

"They seem.. ehm.. nice ?" Liara started, with Garrus answering, irony literally dripping from his tone "Yes, very nice. Militant colonists, armed to the teeth and with as much love for the UNSC as the Krogans for the Turians." Marc took a deep breath, looking at each of his soldiers and Ash, before he breathed out and explained.

"Both sides have done horrible things and many mistakes were made. Some of the earliest Innies resorted to violence while the government offered negotiations. Police retaliated, the situation got out of hand and, if some was presence, military presence had to be called upon to restore order. On Far Isles however, there was neither a USNC nor a CMA garrison." He made a short pause, he had been born after Far Isles but everybody in the Outer Colonies knew about it, that horrible crime committed by the UNSC. He looked around and seeing both Liara and Garrus questioning looks, he went on.

"Far Isles was a small colony at the very edge of human space. No military presence, mainly because the populace was already very anti government and a battalion of army troopers would have only made them angrier. In the end it didn't matter, they revolted anyway, killed any police and government official trying to stop them and declared a free nation, independent from the evil UEG, which had oppressed them with its Pioneer tax breaks and none present military forces." Now Marcs voice was filled with irony, but this immediately disappeared as he went on.

"A small task force was nearby. UNSC naval tactics and doctrine were really shit back then, so two light frigate and a 'carrier' appeared in the system a few weeks later. The officer commanding the force was a bastard, already known for being an extreme nationalist, even by UNSC standards, an authoritarian who believed that you had to follow the government no matter what and everybody who resisted or only spoke out against deserved the rope. But he had been a good officer and since those had been in short supply he still had a command.

Now, as the rebels send him taunting messages and bragged in detail about what they had done to those 'Cop Bastards", the commanding officer, Captain Jake Trutton, decided that he wouldn't waste his men in retaking his small, practically worthless world. He armed all of his bombers with his entire stockpile of nukes and send them out."

If Garrus and Liara had been humans, their faces would have been as pale as snow once Marc reached this part, they could imagine what happened now and while some of the surrounding militiamen seemed angered by his story, Marc finished it.

"His XO protested the order and refused to execute it, so Trutton executed him, on spot, on the bridge and personally gave the order to the bomber squads. 9 of 32 bombers followed the order and before anybody could do anything, they were already on their way and out of weapons reach. The frigates immediately turned their weapons on the carrier once they realized what was going on, but it was too little too late. The bombers attacked, each dropping a several megaton nuclear warhead…. Every last town on the planet was reduced to ash, the radioactive fallout killing those few the fire and pressure left alive. 200 000 people were slaughtered that day and the Insurrection was ignited.". Well, of course there had been other causes for the Insurrection, but Far Isles had since then became the rallying cry for all Innies in the galaxy. So it was good telling them it now, before they just heard some random guy talking about it and got the wrong ideas.

"Nice story, Marine bastard. Nice story they made up to tell themselves that it wasn't their fault. Really heart breaking how the so many brave soldiers failed at preventing this.. tragedy.." the sarcasm in that militia mans voice was so sharp it could probably cut through Titanium-A, but this was to be expected. But Marc knew both versions, he had heard both colonists and UNSC members talk about it and the thing that had formed his opinion about this incident had been what his grandfathers had told him. Gradpa Bradley was a former CMA staff officer, he hated the USNC and everything it stood for with every fibber of his being, but he had never doubted that Far Isles had not been ordered by the UEG or UNSC.

"One thing you should never forget, never ever, is that the other sides are human too, and most humans are actually decent and good people, even those with stars on their shoulders. There are always monsters and crazy people like Trutton and sometimes even the best system can't stop a crazy person from doing crazy stuff." This, or something like, this had been told to him by his grandpa when he had signed with the militia, after not talking to him for two weeks and erasing him from his will. Now while Marc was still thinking about this and tried to come up with a way to defuse the situation, everything changed very quick.

Ash stomped forward, directly towards the militia man that had spoke to them and before anybody could react, Marcs team had not payed attention for a second, it happened. The punch Ashley threw at the man had an almost primal force behind it, immediately throwing him to the ground, although he was several inches tall then Ash. The militiamen directly raised their weapon and Marc didn't even think about raising his, since he didn't want to end up as swiss cheese, but Ash didn't care. She just stood above the bleeding man, whos nose was broken and who was spitting out blood and tooth fragments.

"That XO, that man was my Grandfather, Commander Adrian Williams. He died a hero, because he did his duty and tried to save those people and if you worthless piece of Insurrection dirt ever take his name into your mouth again, I'll make sure that not even a hair will be left of you." Marc had finally fought down the shock that had paralysed him for the first few seconds and he addressed Ash, almost screaming.

"Sergeant Williams, immediately step away from the militia man and give me your weapons. You just attacked an armed serviceman of a neutral faction, Private Häckins will escort you back to the Pelican and make sure you don't step out of line again. Lieutenant Commander Shepard will be informed about this incident and she will judge you for this." He signalled Häckins to bring her away, mostly to get her out the militia mens reach and to prevent any more escalation. His team mate hesitated for a moment before he approached Ash, who just now seemed to realise what she had done and gave away her weapons and ammunition without any comment or resistance. She then slowly trotted away, Häckins directly behind her. Everybodies looks followed them until they were finally out of sight, after which the leader of militia men approached Marc, obviously still slightly shocked.

"Lets agree that this never happened. I will discipline my men later and will not report this to my superiors, can we agree on this ?" Marc only nodded as return and the leader returned to his men, while Marc went back to his team and companions.

"Really didn't like doing that." Marc mumbled and while the other all agreed, Garrus commented. "Yes it was hard, but necessary. No matter the personal issues a soldier had to keep him or herself under control, especially in a situation like this. You're an officer and you need to command respect, if you allow things like this to happen you'd be a liability for those you're supposed to command." Marc only nodded, yes he remembered having heard something like this back in the academy, about two million times, didn't make it better either, but at least the situation wouldn't have any diplomatic after effect, at least officially.

Still Marc moved away a few steps, so that he could speak into his coms without anybody hearing him and radioed Häckins.

"Get Ash into the Pelican and tell the Flight Lieutenant to keep the hatch closed, so no angry militia men can try anything. Also have him radio the Skipper and tell her what happened and that there won't be any official problems because of this." Häckins only answered with a short 'Roger' and Marc returned to the group, still waiting for the colonies leaders to finally come out. Now, that this little "incident" had been solved, Liaras eyes started to inspect the colony around them again, it really wasn't something special. A mixture of standard prefab buildings with some human flair to them, it was interesting to see how other species build their cities, to spot every little difference but also to realize how similar everybody was in these regards. Her mind trailed off a little, forming hypothesises about what she saw, so she didn't directly notice that they were finally welcomed.

A grey haired, small women and a man with a complete bald head , almost like a polished bowling ball, had stepped out and after a few words to the militiamen commander. They then turned towards Garrus and Liara, ignoring Marc for the moment.

"Miss T'Soni and Agent Vakarian, we are more than happy to welcome you on Freedoms progress, I am council woman Lin Shu and this Constable Rad. You are the first nice visitors from council space, so we are more than happy that you come to us."

She paused for a second, obviously on purpose waiting for any questions, but since Garrus and Liara only looked at her a little bit surprised, she explained.

"Don't worry, just some pirates and slavers begging for a beating, nothing major or nothing that would hurt relations between us and the Citadel." She had obviously wanted to brag about this, for normal colonies, pirate attacks meant either slavery or death by orbital bombardment, the System Alliance however had given them some of their own medicine. When a small pirate flotilla had appeared a month ago, they had lured them into a false sense of security. The pirates had landed several hundred of their men, just to get greeted by thousands of well armed and experienced militia men. While the independent colonists had formed some sort of nation and even had a navy, they didn't call their soldiers Marines or Troopers, to differentiate themselves from the 'oppressive' UNSC and its armies. Now, once those batarian pirates had landed on the planet, several hidden mass drivers had first shoot down the pirates cruiser and then the local air force and other defensive guns had taken care of the remaining frigates. It had been a one-sided massacre and no pirate had even dared to think about attacking them since then.

"Nice to hear." Garrus answered, not really caring about this anecdote, while Liara's mind was focused on something else. She could swear that she had just spotted a Quarian and an Asari a few hundred feet away, but she wasn't sure and could have just been a human in a working suit. The others still waited for Liara to react and only a polite cough from Marc returned her mind to the current situation.

"Oh, yes, nice to hear, indeed." She stuttered, scrambling the last words her brain had noticed and she slightly relaxed after Ms. Shu smiled at her friendly and gestured them to enter the building. They didn't address Marc at all, but for him this was preferable to constant, subliminal aggression or blame directed at him. He gestured Mina and Daiki to also return to the Pelican and followed the other inside, under constant observation by the not very friendly or happy looking constable. We'll he shouldn't expect too much here, everything was good, as long as it didn't end with a bullet between his eyes.

The inside of the council halls was simple, the usual pre-fab items you saw on every colony everywhere. Also everything was clean, far cleaner than on any colony Marc had ever seen, a clear sign that everything was brand new. Whoever had financed this colony had not satisfied with pre-owned items, but honestly this was a waste of money. Frontier colonies were dirty, had always been dirty and wouldn't take long until every part of the colonial infrastructure had a nice patina of dust and fingerprints on it. But if they wanted to spend money on shiny new stuff, it was there decision not his, so a part of his mind started to wonder of while the other part fought a desperate fight to stay awake and aware while he followed the others.

Mina and Daiki now were even more bored than their commanding officer, yes they were career soldiers but still, this was just boring. Daiki had already lit his second cigarette and they were small talking, when suddenly something strange caught Minas attention. "I think we're being observed." Mina mumbled, but Daiki only mumbled disinterested " What, some children exited about soldiers is now interesting Mina ?". But she only shook her head, before she replied with a slight grin.

"No, I'd say we're observed by a Quarian." Daiki coughed and spit out his cigarette as he turned around and spotted the Quarian hiding behind a few crates, they couldn't tell if it was a he or a she, for non Quarians almost impossible due to their suits. But even with the suit one could tell that this Quarian was for some reason not normal, the alien seemed twitchy and couldn't even stay still for a moment, although it seemed to try to hide. Daiki gave Mina a sign and while he continued to hold his position, observing the militia mens movement, while she approached their "groupie".

"No, no, they want to take me they came for me no !" alright this guy, his voice sounded male, was surely not ok. He muttered something strange and moved away from her , yes she was a soldier and fully armed but had done nothing that would suggest she wanted to harm him.

"Hey, everything's fine, nobody wants to hurt you. What are you doing here" thankfully their upgrade translator upgrade had included Quarian, sadly Mina still could only understand and not speak it, so the alien probably didn't understand her, unless his Omni-Tool had the still rather rare human standard languages translator. And it didn't work, the alien continued to mumble some frantic gibberish and stumbled away from her, so she was already about to leave the guy alone, as she heard a more feminine voice coming from her side.

"Vitor, here you are, I was worried sick about you." It was another Quarian and now Mina recognized the difference between Quarian males and females, this one was obviously a woman, she had a more slender build and of course, a feminine voice. The other Quarian seemed to relax a little once she approached them and she directly inspected him, noticing something , before she started to scold "Vitor".

"Your suit has been punctured, you probably caught an infection. You have to pay more attention or you'll get seriously ill while nobody's there to help you. I gave you some medicine, sit down for a moment so it can start working" Vitor did as he was told and leaned against the crates, still mumbling something, while the female Quarian turned towards Mina.

"I'm really sorry about Vitor, he's very clumsy and a bit neurotic, the infection must have made it worse." She sounded nice and Mina smiled a little as she replied.

"Don't worry, we just wondered why he was observing us, nothing happened, just got to know that everything's ok. What are you two actually doing here ? Didn't knew that Quarians lived on this planet." The female Quarian shot another look at the still mumbling Vitor, before she answered Mina.

"Vitor here is on his pilgrimage and the flotilla had lost contact with him, so I was send to find him. I'm Tali by the way, nice to meet you." She now focused on Vitor again, making sure he was still conscious, while Mina took a few seconds to continue the conversation.

"I'm Mina, UNSC Marine Corps, we were send here on a diplomatic mission. But why did Vitor go to a human colony, aren't you supposed to get anything worth something during your pilgrimage? This is just a frontier colony, not much to get here .".

For a second Tali seemed to be surprised, at least she turned her head towards Mina and looked, or seemed to look at her, for several moments, before answering, slightly excited. "Human colonies are actually really great for a pilgrimage. The human colonists normally don't have any stereo types about us and are really nice. Foods sometimes a problem, since we can't eat human food, but with good preparation that's no problem either. Human tech is so different from ours , but its really useful. Your computers are amazing, not as small as Omni-Tools but with a capacity we believed to be impossible, you have really basic but incredibly effective terra forming tech, so much stuff we could use. Also your ships, they are so massive, something like a Phoenix-class ship could house so many of our people."

For a moment, Mina was slightly overwhelmed by this wave of words from the Quarian, but she regained her composure after a moment and took a deep breath. She wasn't a tech expert, so she didn't really understand what Tali was talking about, but she got the basics.

"So the colonists are ok with you taking or copying their computers and other stuff ? I mean they don't even have the good stuff that you could find on Reach, Mars or Earth." She remarked and she could swear that the Quarian woman, well she sounded a bit more like a teenager to be honest, was breathing heavy and starred at her. But it only took a second until Tali regained her composure and she returned to care for Vitor.

What Mina had directly noticed was how heavily armed Tali was, Citadel-tech weapons looked strange while collapsed but the young Marine was sure that she spotted a shotgun and a pistol. But as long as Tali didn't pull these weapons on her she didn't really care about them, these colonies were right at the border to the Terminus so people without guns would be more suspicious than armed citiziens.

"So you'll two will be al…." Mina couldn't finish her sentence, as a massive explosion roared through the settlement, deafening anybody and anything. Immediately the militia men and women jumped up from their post and franticly tried to find out what just happened, some even pointing there guns at Daiki. The Marine immediately raised his hands, touching his gun in this situation could have caused a war between the colonies and the UEG if they were unlucky.

"It wasn't us, all off us are either here, inside or at the air base." He finally said and after a few moments the militia mens commander agreed with him and they moved away a little. The lieutenant than talked to somebody over his personal comms and even from a few meter distance Daiki could see that the men paled. Mina and the Quarians had just joined the small group, as the officer turned towards his men and by extension the others and said.

"Main defensive uplink just blew up and somebody smuggled a virus into the system. All air-defenses and radar are down." This was bad, really, really bad and could mean only one thing, somebody would only disable a colonies defences if they planned to invade it. Sirens now filled the air and within a minute the small group was almost swallowed by hundreds of civilians heading to emergency shelters. For several minutes they tried to fight their way through the crowds, as suddenly another sound joined the sirens.

Heavy engines, like a starfighter had them, roared above them and before they could spot the fighters, they saw the pair of cruise missiles racing only a few dozen meter above them, just a second before another, this time even louder explosion ripped everybody from their feet. The air field had just been annihilated.

Chapter 8 End

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Citadel Archives :

 **The Far Isles massacre**

One of the worst moments of recent human history, the massacre at Far Isles has been one of the biggest moment of shame in the UNSCs entire history. Reacting to a uprising on a small outer colony, the extremely nationalistic UNSC Captain Jake Trutton ordered his Task Force to "Burn the fuckers".

While most soldiers refused the orders and Trutton even killed his XO for trying to stop the order, several nuclear armed bombers still managed to attack the colony before the rest of the Battlegroup had neutrlized Truttona and his loyalists. But it was too late, every major settlement on Far Isles was destroyed by nuclear flames and over 200 000 colonists died.

Far Isles caused major uproar in the colonies and became a rallying cry for most rebel movements in human space, eventhough the UEG and UNSC did their best to make up for this horrible crime. Every single person that had lost relatives on that colony was massivly compensated (some even suggest sums of over 10 millions per head) and Trutton and every Bomber pilot were sentenced to death by a military court, one of the few times the UNSC officially used corporal punishment on one off their own.

Far Isles remains a hot topic for both UNSC/UEG and rebels. The rebels still using it to prove the UNSC brutality and hostility towards the colonies, while many UNSC and even some CMA servicemen are slowly starting to grow tired of beeing blamed for the horrible crimes of a few mad people.

Authors Note :

Before anybody asked, yes I may have taken some liberties describing Far Isles and the Insurrection, but I really, really don't like this trend in Halo to make the UNSC litteraly the bad guys. ONI amy be assholes, but in the end the normal soldiers are still human.

And from my experience in the Armed Forces (German Airforce) most soldiers are still humans and most humans are decent beeing once you get to know them. Of course there are always assholes that fall through the system, like you see with Far Isles.

Just a fair warning, I just started a new job and the University started and is currently very taxing for me, so don't expect a new chapter too soon. I'll try not to take two months this time, but I can't make any promises.

With that Tobi out.


	10. Chapter 9: Freedom under siege

tobiisagoodboy94 here. Finally, after a long time I finished another chapter, yes I'm slow and lazy. Still here's the new chapter, so have fun.

* * *

 **Halo chapter 9**

 **Freedom under siege**

„What the hell is going on?" Marc stormed out of the government building, weapon at the ready and immediately scanning his surroundings. They had been in the middle of some rather boring discussions, which of course had been filled with snarky remarks against the UEG and UNSC, as the whole building had been shaken by the massive explosion outside.

The streets of the colony were now filled with people, civilians trying to reach shelters, militia men running to their position and in between that mass of people, his two squad members tried to not get washed away by the tidal wave of humans. Two aliens, Marc didn't recognize their species were standing next to his soldiers and he made his way towards them, followed by Liara, while Garrus stayed with the colonials.

"What just happened?" he asked but Mina and Daiki only shook their heads, just like the aliens, so Marc turned his head around and tried to spot where Garrus and militia commander had stayed. The older men seemed to be talking to somebody over the comms and finally the wave of colonists and militia men seemed to slowly thin out. Almost everybody lay down flat on the floor the sound of heavy engines filled the air again, as fighters of unknown origins raced above their head, chasing the few colonial fighters that were still in the air. No AA-gun or rocket launcher opened fire on these attackers, so Marc could already guess what had just been blown up.

"The central defence control hub was blown up. We have no idea who did it, but its gone and some sort of virus is blocking the local controls for the guns. We are defenceless." The commander said out loud, not really caring about who was around and who heard it. Yes, this was the worst-case scenario and it just got worse. They had no radar anymore, but the naked eye was enough to spot the dozens of dropships racing down towards the colony.

"God damm slavers. They really hit us with our pants down." The council women said out loud, while the elder soldier was busy organizing the defences of the town. A low rumbling, in the beginning not even noticeable, downed out by the roar of the overhead fighter's engines, but soon it became louder, as the sky got filled by at first small black spots. Dropships, hundreds of dropships were raining down the colony. Where the hell was the Bastogne? Wouldn't Shepard do everything to prevent these slavers from reaching the colony?

Once the Dropships were only a few hundred metres up in the sky, the defenders finally returned fire, but only with a few mounted heavy machine guns and some shoulder mounted rocket launchers and not more than maybe one or two spacecrafts were shot down by this pitiful resistance, as the AA guns and Mass drivers stayed silence and no additional militia fighters raised into the sky. However, the slavers seemed to recognize the largest concentration of militia men and women and avoided these as their dropships landed.

"We have probably several thousand slavers inside the colony, the defensive net is down, just like long range sensors or communication. Anybody got any smart ideas?" the colonel asked, as everybody hurried into cover and he actually got an answer to this rhetorical question.

"While searching for Vitor, I couldn't help myself but notice that you use an old salarian network system to coordinate your guns, right?" Tali asked and after a moment of surprise the colonel answered with a short nod and Tali went on, as the first raced over their head. A group over slavers tried to storm the small plaza they were on and immediately one of them got torn apart by a burst from marc battle rifle into his chest and shot from Garrus between his eyes.

"That system has several smaller sub stations that can control local defence clusters. If I could reach one of these clusters, I could purge the system and reinstall the original software. While this wouldn't give us back the full grind, we'd at least have some guns." Tali spoke, while casually firing her pistol at the Batarians. For a few moments the colonel thought about this, as the others slowly decimated the Batarians. To the human's surprise, Liara created a singularity behind the Batarians, who got lifted into the air like they were in Zero-G, making it easy to pick them off one by one.

"Alright, Miss Zorah, I'm not sure about this, but it's out best chance at the moment. You and the UNSCs" he just shortly nodded towards Marc's team," make your way to the nearest cluster. My troops will take care of the other clusters and reset the communication, your friend will stay with us here, he'll be safe. If you're right, we may just make it out of this mess." He grinned shortly and then started to talk into his radio, barking orders into it.

"Alright, he may not have command over us but he's right." Marc commented and, to his dismay, Liara had already put position next to them, making it clear that they would come with them, while more bullets flew over their heads or slammed into the low walls they had covered behind. The first wave of Batarians was already decimated and a poor gunship that tried to support them had just crashed right on top of them, after two rockets blasted of both of its wings.

"Thanks to the map we got provided, it is no problem finding the cluster, if the Colonel tells his troops not shoot us. The Batarians won't expect any counter attacks, so we go in fast and hard and with a tiny bit of luck we might just survive." Everybody nodded or showed their approval otherwise, while the gun fire intensified, the militia men had managed to bring a mounted machinegun to the front and now mercilessly put the slavers under suppressive fire, tearing several of the attacker apart, while seemingly endless reinforcements took their place.

"Go!"

 _Orbit above Freedoms Progress_

"We were lucky really lucky." Jane Sheppard thought to herself and yes, it was true. Nobody could have thought that the demands from colonists, to stay away from the colony as far as possible, would have come in useful. When the slavers had come through the relay, the Bastogne had been covered by the planets moon, while a few recon drones the ship had set out during their approach warned them about the attackers. The ship was now in low orbit of the planets moon, still hiding from the slavers who didn't even seem to think about scouting the system for any stragglers or enemies. Good for them, against two cruisers and half a dozen frigates their chances of survival would have been zero.

"Sir, one of the slavers cruisers is heading for the Relay." the young female officer responsible for the ships sensors almost screamed, but Sheppard could already guess what was happening. The ships were most likely full of slaves and they were carrying them to their base. Such a horrible fate, but right now there was nothing she could do, if she attacked and destroyed the cruiser, the second one would kill them, and they'd kill all the captured colonists. No, they had to let these leave, as much as it bugged her and made her uncomfortable.

But she couldn't dwell on that, her thoughts already raced around the issue at hand. The second cruiser leaving was improving their situation immensely, they could deal with a single old, batarian cruiser, especially with its escort occupied on the planet. But they had to cross far too much distance, being on the other side of the moon had allowed them to stay undetected, but now it also worked against them, the long distance clearly favoured the longer-range weapons of the slavers. She had to find a way around that.

"The moon…" a thought blocked out anything else in her head and with shaky but lightning fast hands she made some calculation on her computer. Yes, it might just work, it would give them more speed and if the captain of the slavers cruiser was stupid, even shorten the distance they had to cross. The math seemed to fit, at least her crude calculation, so she addressed the bridge.

"Navigation, I am sending some basic plot and acceleration calculation, checks some and tell me once you're ready to set them into motion." The female officer, after checking the calculations, looked at her superior in amazement for a few moment before she replied with a short "Yes sir." And did as she was told. While the other members of the bridge crew now also returned to well organized chaos of managing a warship, Jane leaned into her comfy Captain chair for a moment and weighted their chances again. Yes, it might just work.

"Ahhh!" the screams of the batarians slaver got lost in the gunfire, as a warp threw him of the rooftop he had taken cover on. The resistance had become stiffer and stiffer as Marc's small squad had gotten closer to the secondary nexus, seemingly the Batarians knew what their aim was, but with the support of some militia men they had been able to keep on moving the whole time. They needed to, the moment they got bogged down would be the moment the Batarians could regroup and effectively counter their advance. _Keep on moving, keep on attacking._ Marc kept on telling himself, as he emptied the last three rounds of his rifles magazine into one of the slaver, who's head turned into bloody mash, while quick and trained hands changed the magazine. He had to be conservative with his ammo, the militia probably had no ammo for a new rifle type like the one he was using and their Pelican full of ammo was probably blown up.

"With Ash, Häkin and the Flight lieutenant inside." He mumbled to himself under his breath, he hadn't really thought about that until now, but for the moment he tried to bury that thought as deep as possible and focus on the situation at hand. Two magazines left, not counting the one in his weapon, he'd have to change to his sidearm soon if he wanted to save at least some bullets. Or, while nobody was looking take the weapon and ammo of a dead militia man, not that he or she would complain and hey he would be using it to defend the colony. It was these moment that he got a little jealous of the weapons that Garrus and Liara had, with their super-fast, super small projectiles reloading was literally never an issue for them in combat. Yes, these guns could overheat, but of them were so quick at swapping between their weapons that you hardly noticed any pause in their fire. Still, while their weapons were more primitive than even the most basic small arms available to the species of the Citadel, they had some advantages. They were far more reliable and wouldn't break as easily, in fact you could beat somebody to death with a UNSC firearm and only scratch its paint job a little, and what they lacked in sophistication, they made up for with raw power.

Another headshot from Garrus let the head of slaver explode, as they finally broke through the last group that stood between them and the local defence hub. They raced around a corner, right towards a low, single story building that had tiny windows and seemingly massive walls. For the first time since they had moved out they were not under fire and for a moment they felt a slight relief. Tali ran straight towards the door, which turned out to be a massive armoured bulkhead made from Titanium-A, painted to look like a simple door.

"The door is sealed; the virus has blocked it. I need a moment to open it." Tali explained as she went to work on her Omni-Tool. Mina knocked on the walls of the building and the sound made the three humans pray to any god they knew that Tali could really open this. The walls of the hub were made of ceramic-concrete, probably reinforced with more Titanium-A, that thing could withstand a direct hit from a tanks main gun with no problems.

"Hurry up Tali, we are sitting ducks here in the open, if the slavers attack now we'll all be shredded." Mina told the Qurrian, who got ready to tell her that tech is delicate and so on so forth, but the sound of gunfire stopped her from doing that. The first few shots hit the ground around them, since the slavers had not taken proper aim and just started firing the moment they saw them and within a split second, the bullets started to bounce of a blue force field, that seemingly out of nowhere had appeared around them. Liara had created a biotic shield that now took the brunt of the attack, a feat which visibly exhausted and drained her within seconds.

Moments passed by like they were hours as the soldiers returned fire, to little effect as now seemingly whole platoons seemed to bare down on them. "They know we're up to something, hurry up Tali." Garrus screamed as he blew the head of one of the attacking batarians, but two more just took his place. "Got it." The massive door slid open, cruelly slow and Tali pressed herself into the building before it was even completely open. Within two seconds the entire team jumped into the massive bunker like building, except for Liara, who still stood in front of the door and kept up the now wavering biotic barrier.

Suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around Liaras wrist and dragged her backwards, right through the door. Several shoots raced over Liaras head as she fell into the building backwards. The door started to close before Liara hit the floor, but to her surprise she fell in something rather soft. For a few moments the room was in complete darkness, before a few small lights came on and a slight, nervous giggle filled the room.

"Lt, there are really better ways to get close to a girl than that.". Liara, still shell shocked, needed a few moments to realize what just happened and especially how had grabbed her and who's arms were still around her hip. She could feel how the breath underneath Andrews armour plates increased slightly and she blushed slightly, before the young Asari freed herself from the grip of the still shocked Marine. She tried to orientate herself and just now she noticed the dulled sound of bullets and explosives hitting the massive walls of the building.

"Let's hope they have no real military grade explosives to get this door open." Garrus commented as he watched through the crates that filled most of the room. The entire base level of the building was just a single room and except for the mountains of crates there was a large computer console on one of the walls. Tali had already started working on the console, constantly muttering Quarian curses, while Andrew finally stood up, gave Mina a stern look and started to look through one of the crates.

"MREs in this one, Pistol ammo in the other one. Seems like they also used this as a storage room for emergency supplies." he explained, as he took some pistol magazine and package of ammunition out of a crate, sat down on another and started to load the magazines one bullet at a time. Garrus eyes were fixed on him for a few moments before he sighed and sat down. He knew why Mina had made that completely unfitting remark and why Andrew had immediately started to look through the crates and kept himself busy. A protective mechanism to keep themselves busy or distracted from the war they had just fought though and that was now kept outside by Titanium and Concrete. Honestly their situation was bad, this building had only one small entrance and was surrounded by hundreds of slavers. If they really wanted entrance they could just bomb the building to rubble, with them inside, which they would probably do once they realized what was inside. Andrew and Mina and Daiki knew this obviously, which is why they tried to not think about it.

"Yes, you little son of bosh'tet, got you." Tali exclaimed triumphantly, with an almost maniacal laugh following, ok not what anybody here expected. They now piled around here to see what was happening. One of the screens was radar, they could see the fighters and frigates that raced above the colony and dominated the sky. Another was a small map of the colonies, with the guns marked on it and then there where half a dozen smaller screens, each the live feed from a defence gun.

"I have 4 AA-guns and 2 Onager mass drivers that are still operational in this cluster. Also, the radio network is working again." Tali explained, her chest visible lifting in pride.

"Give me the colonel, let them know what's about to happen." Garrus ordered and Marc accepted this without a problem, and a few seconds later, the low boom of a hypersonic round being fired shook the massive building to the core. The frigates and fighters of the slaver had no chance for the first few moments, too big was the surprise of sudden fire from the ground.

Each AA-Gun fired 100 20mm rounds per second, filling the sky with air, as fighters were shred apart like paper. The first shot from an Onager hit a frigate and collapsed its barriers, just for dozens of AA-projectiles to riddle the ship with holes and finally the second Onager blasting a big hole where a second before the ships cockpit was. The second frigate and the remaining fighters regrouped, getting out of the immediate range of the defence cluster, but now another sound filled the air, the deep roar of human jet engines.

"Skipper, the colony is fighting back." Sheppard shot up in her seat, having focused on trajectory calculation for the last few minutes, as a radar feed filled the main screen of the bridge.

"Several guns have come to life and are shredding the slavers, one frigates already down. Also... holy…" the lieutenant just stopped his curse and took a moment to calm down before he went on.

"The colony seems to have a secret air base, located inside a mountain range about 20 miles outside the settlement."

"Cheeky bastards, this might just give us a chance. Execute "Slingshot" now, this might be our chance to take out that cruiser." She ordered her crew and immediately, the until now motionless ship came to life again, burning its engines with 20 % force, slowly moving away from the moon towards the planet."

"Unknown contact, probably human seems to have hidden behind the moon." Exclaimed one of the slaver cruisers bridge crew members, as their captain checked the scans of the ship. It was only a human 'frigate' not one of these monstrous destroyers that could take out a cruiser within a minute and take main gun shoots right to the face. No this would be easy.

"What the hell are they doing?" another bridge crew member asked loudly, and the Captain returned his attention to the screen. The human ship had just pecked out behind the moon, only to make a 180 degree turn and burning its engines at what looked like 100% power. Did somebody make a mistake and now they're trying to escape?

"Get us closer, maybe we can snatch some more goods if we take out these clowns." The crew followed the order and slowly the ship moved towards the moon.

Jane Sheppard was pressed into her seat, just like the rest of her crew, even with artificial gravity, which wasn't that good on human ships to begin with, the current acceleration of the Bastogne was almost unbearable for humans or any living creature. They were now again racing towards the moon, or to be precise, around the moon, in a slingshot manoeuvre. One, if not the biggest problem human ships had in combat against Citadel ships was range. While the main gun of a turian cruiser was less potent than the standard light MAC used in both Stalwart and Charon-class frigates, their range was far greater. Citadel guns fired "small" projectiles with immense speed, while UNSC MAC guns fired massive 600 tons slugs at a "decent" speed. This lowered the precise range, the range in which the projectile reaches its target before any bridge crew worth even a little bit can react and evade it. Since Ships, considering their speed and the vastness of space, were rather small targets, which are hard to hit.

There was however a way to at least lessen the fact that UNSC MAC rounds travelled at about 30 km per second, when fired from an unmoving ship, while the main gun of a Citadel Dreadnought accelerated a projectile to about 4000 km per second, also from an unmoving target. Accelerating the ship and making the enemy coming to you were the two-way USNC officers had focused on, since a slug fired from a ship that was already travelling at 1000 km per second would retain that speed, plus the acceleration from the gun itself, making it incredibly deadly, enough to easily punch through a ship.

Of course, this tactic had limited use against the Citadel, their ability to make micro FTL jumps meant that they could easily evade any ship racing towards them using this tactic. But under the right circumstance and with an opponent not knowing what was going on this was possible.

The slingshot around the moon had just been a manoeuvre to gain more speed, to use the moons gravity for their own benefit. Thankfully UNSC ships were built sturdy enough to withstand far more acceleration than what they were doing right and after a short time, the Bastogne had finished her flight around the moon and now shoot towards the approaching cruiser, with, by UNSC standard, an almost suicidal speed. The thruster immediately started random evasion manoeuvres, getting hit by a slug at this speed would be a certain death sentence.

"What are they doing?" the batarian captain muttered, as the ship was now firing volleys of rockets, that slowly accelerated ahead of their 'home'. Their own main gun came to life now, but the frantic movements of the enemy ship made it impossible to hit over that distance, but we'll their speed would only increase the chance of hitting them with every second.

"Ready MAC, fire second Archer volley 0.2 seconds afterwards and immediately perform the evasion manoeuvre once they're out." Sheppard ordered, as the computer finally announced that they were in effective range.

The Archer barrage, the second which had been fired to make sure that the cruiser was finished of for sure, was unnecessary. The ships barriers did almost nothing to stop the almost 1000km per second fast 600-ton projectile, which at contact seemed to pop the ship like bubble, before it continued its travel through space, only slightly slowed down by the obstacle it had just destroyed. To not collided with the remnants of the cruiser, the Bastogne had immediately turned its nose up by 90 degrees, accelerating away from the now expanding field of metal and frozen air, water and bio mass that had once been a ship and its crew.

There was no celebration on the Bastogne's bridge, just dozens of relieved sighs once they were no longer pressed into their seats. Sheppard's eyes directly returned to her personal monitor and after a few seconds she ordered.

"Get our Marines ready and bring us back to the colony, they're going to need our help."

The lights had gone out in control room, just like the consoles and the entire power in the building, not surprising after several hits from rocket launcher and what seemed to hand grenades. Thankfully both the massive concrete walls and the titanium door had still not given in, but still the slavers had achieved their target. The control nexus was offline and with it the guns they had controlled, so the fight in the air was back to fighter plane vs fighter plane, not that the small group trapped inside the building knew. No signal could make it out of there, so they had taken cover behind the crates that filled most of the room, aiming their guns at the door and walls that were still maltreated by the slavers outside. The only source of light was the weak shimmer from Talis, Garrus and Liara Omni tools, giving them just enough light to not run against anything and shoot each other.

No words were spoken and the sound tensed breaths from them all was drowned by the dulled sound of explosions and shoots from the outside. They were ready to unleash hell on the poor soul that broke through the door first, as hell broke loose. They didn't know what it was, but from one moment to another, the ground and the entire building started to shake like the strongest earthquake imaginable just happened, while deafening explosions, hardly dulled from the massive walls ripped through the stale air of the room. The whole hell just took a few moments and then everything was silence, completely silence except from the shocked, short breaths from the inhabitants of the room. Garrus was buried under several, as it turned out thankfully empty, crates and after digging out from underneath, they started to inspect the still, to their surprise intact wall.

"Whoever build this place deserves a price." Mina mumbled, as flashlight now illuminated the room, their light dancing through the clouds of concrete dust that filled the air, while Marc's hands ran across the wall inspecting it, finding deep fracture and long cracks running across the entire front. Still, nothing but eerie silence outside.

"Tali can you open the door?" he asked and after a bit of typing in her Omni tool, the young Quarian woman replied.  
"It's unlocked but jammed. Probably have to use manual force to open it." Great, now all they needed was a long crowbar.

"The remaining slavers are surrendering sir. The militia managed to capture a downed frigate and their air force now has total air supremacy. There are still a few pockets of resistance, but they'll probably be cleared out with the hour." The tactical officer explained to Jane Sheppard, while she looked out of the bridges window onto the planet. Thanks to Marc's team reactivating a defence cluster, the militia could gain the initiative and reset several more cluster, making it easy for them to first clean the air and now the ground. Several official of the colony had already grudgingly accepted the additional help from the Bastogne, two Pelicans worth of soldiers was simply too tempting with still thousands of slavers inside the main settlement. They were now busy getting Marc's team out of the almost destroyed command post. Sadly, they still had no intel on the lost Pelican, so Ash and the others were ….

A loud siren tore her out of her thoughts, as Sheppard's eyes returned to the displays and she didn't like what she saw. At least 4 more cruiser with several frigates had just passed the relay and they did not send any friendly signal, not even the ones used by the colony.

"Get to battle stations and accelerate, let's see if we can't…" Sheppard barked the order but was suddenly cut of by her astrogating officer. "Another Relay activation, it's…".

Long range sensors on star ships were, in difference to communication, limited by the speed of light. That was true for both UNSC and Citadel ships, although some researchers had tried to circumvent this limitation since the very beginnings of space travel.

Faster than light communication however was possible, thanks to Citadel tech and the Bastogne had been one of the first ship to get the refit. Inside a star system she could communicate with any other ship in real time, a tech which had also been used by the races of the Citadel to at least lessen the limitation of sensors a bit. Drones and frigates normally formed a veil around fleets, constantly scanning sending data to the larger ships.

The Bastogne had, upon entering the system, placed several small recon probes between the relay, giving her almost real time surveillance of the entry route. The slavers had overlooked these probes, they were small and very hard to recognize as something else than just debris or space rocks. Now the Bastogne had, thanks to these little drones, a live feed from the beautiful scene that just unfolded at the gate.

An Epoch-class heavy cruiser, two Halberd-class destroyers and a Marathon class-cruiser had come through the relay just after the slavers and once the confusion had worn down, had moved to crush them, before they could even turn. A combination a strong MAC volley from all ships and a full salvo of Archer missiles had annihilated the cruiser, while the screening frigates tried to scatter, just to get splatted like flies by the carrier's immense firepower. The whole spectacle took maybe two minutes and by the end of it the entire second wave of the slavers had been reduced to nothing but glowing debris.

"RnD didn't lie about the new toys they installed on the Epochs and Marathons, can't wait till the entire Navy gets the Upgrades." Sheppard thought to herself, as she sat up in her seat and got ready to answer the call from the fleet. She couldn't hide her surprise over the face that greeted her on the screen.

"Greeting Bastogne. This is the Alamein and her 'Battlegroup', good to know that we made it in time."

A man in his late forties, with already much grey in his once dark brown hair greeted Jane, an almost boyish grin on his face, one hundred percent knowing how awesome their little battle at looked for any bystander.

"Read-Admiral Morell, it is a pleasant surprise to see you and the Alamein here." Jane said and relaxed in her chair. Maybe this could still turn into a lucky day.

Chapter 9 End

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Authors Note: So Chapter 9 done, what do you guys think about it ? I may rushed the battle a bit, but the plot will pick up after this chapter and i ddin't want to write four or so chapters about this battle. Let's just say Jane Sheppard will develop in a direction influenced heavily by a series of Sci-Fi books I'm currently reading. Also, let's just say Rear-Admiral Morrel might also play a role in the future. ^^

Well enough from me, but just one more question :

Would you people be interested in a OC contest ? There are a few characters that I need for the future chapters, so if you want it, I could insert one or two OCs into the story.

But now for real enough, tobiisagoodboy94 out.


	11. Chapter 10: Wrath of the Eagle

**Authors Comment:** Wait, I'm still writing this? Yes I am. It took me ages, mainly cause well my free time is limited and this is not the only story or fandom I like to write. But, after the long hiatus and until I post my next chapter(probably after at least 6 months of wait^^) have lots of fun with this.

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 **Chapter 10**

 **Wrath of the Eagle**

Describing the situation as tense or weird was an understatement, just like calling World War 1 a slight disagreement between neighbours. Right now, a small UNSC battlegroup, lead by the massive Epoch-class carrier Alamein and under the command of rear-admiral Erich Morell was parked right next to the independent colony Freedoms Progress. Several ground-based and repaired mass drivers and rocket silos were aimed at them at all time and that wasn't even the largest problem. Just an hour after they had destroyed the last slavers ship, a small force of colonial, or System Alliance, ships had entered the system.

Scans had identified them as older generation warships, cruisers you could buy with ease in the Terminus and a few, heavily modified, Mako-class corvettes. At least the commander of this force hadn't opened fire on sight, so now the two flotillas were eying each other. Morell had agreed to meet the colonial commander on his ship, so a Pelican with him, Garrus, Liara, Tali and what remained of Marc's was just landing in the cruiser's hangar bay. The procedure took longer than usual, a cruiser, if it was classified by Citadel standards, had a by UNSC standards a hangar of rather limited size, so the pilot had to pay extra attention not to damage any of the fighters or dropships that were cramped in there.

Finally, the machine sat down, and the Rear-Admiral was the first to stand up and walk for the ramp. The colonial commander had requested that the "friends" who had helped to defend the colony would also come to his ship. To be honest the skipper of this cruiser had told them this, since they hadn't seen the Commanders face or heard his voice till now. It was a bit unnerving but, with the exception of Tali, they managed to hide this uneasiness, while the Rear-admiral seemed to be completely calm.

Some 'Marines' already waited for them, they were armed with second grade armour and weapons of which there was a pretty much endless supply in the Terminus. Still, at least they seemed to be more disciplined than the militia men, they didn't try to pick a fight and except for their tenseness showed no emotions. The walk through to the cruiser didn't take too long, the ship was a bit smaller than a Halberd-Destroyer so hardly a capital ship by UNSC standards. Marc wasn't familiar with the crew layout of "Citadel-cruisers", his only trip on such a warship had been several years ago, but still it was crowded on board here, with a disproportionate number of Marines. They had been prepared to take back the colony in case the slavers had overrun the defences.

The awfully slow lift to the bridge now finally stopped and their escorts went out first, with Rear-Admiral Morell right behind them and Marc's team and alien friends in tow. One thing a naval soldier had to admit that this ship was not some ragtag rebel bucket. It was clean, the crew professional and disciplined and everything seemed to be in as good of a condition as possible. Still Marc had to take a deep breath once he saw who waited for them.

A man with short black, already largely grey hair and beard and a hard, scar covered face awaited them, a face filled with determination and confidence. The famous "Grey wolf", one of the most famous rebel ship commanders, responsible for about one third of all UNSC looses during the last 15 years. Former UNSC Captain Steven Hackett stood there, wearing what appeared to be a blue admirals uniform, every single UNSC member knew this mans face and under other circumstances Marc would have at least shoot his leg to capture him. But the situation didn't allow that, they were guests on his ship and they really wanted to get home alive.

"Captain Steven Hackett." Morell said, not in the slightest moved by their host, disregarding the ornament rank insignia Hackett wore. Hackett didn't show even the slightest reaction to this and just calmly corrected him.

"It is Fleet Admiral Steven Hackett, of the System Alliance Navy." Morell raised one eyebrow at this and replied, with a dry tone and emotionless voice. "Really? I remember a certain Lieutenant-Commander Hackett telling me that he would never give up commanding a ship to sit in some admiral chair or am I mistaken?". For the slightest of moments there was a hint of surprise on Hackett's face, like he hadn't expected this answer or that Morell would remember this, but then he replied dryly.

"Not an admiral in the UNSC, not one to command the suppression of protesting people. But an Admiral of Navy defending freedom instead of destroying, on that chair I can sit." The atmosphere was so tense, you cut it with a knife as these two men stood face to face with each other and neither the remaining guests nor any of the bridge crew or Marine guards dared to take a break. For almost an entire minute the two men looked at each other, waiting for a response, until the hint of a grin formed on Morell's face and he said.

"Good to know. Now that this is cleared, please tell us what was so important that we needed a personal meeting. As much as I enjoy this stay, I have important business to attend to." Hackett didn't show any reaction, as he stepped towards the holo-projector that was located in the middle of the bridge.

"We are thankful for your assistance during the slavers raid on the colony. Still, they managed to abduct over a thousand colonists and from what I have been told also some UNSC soldiers, so it seems like we have some common goals." Morell had taken a position on the opposite side of the table, listening to his colonial counterpart, while the entire bridge and the guests seemed to be frozen in place, observing the two men's conversation.

"From the data we salvaged from the downed slaver frigate, we managed to extract the position of their base. Taruk, a remote little planet just on the border between the Traverse and the Terminus, not of much importance, except for the massive pirate base that is hidden there." Until now Morell had been silently listening, observing the holo projection of Taruk, which had been called up by Hackett while he explained the situation. But now he rose his voice, with a well measured amount of snark in it.

"And, since your 'Alliance Navy' is not strong enough to take care of these pirates yourself, you're asking us to help out." The Commander in Chief of the System Alliance again showed no reaction to this interruption, he only took in a deep breath and answered the question.

"Yes, our forces are still not as strong as we'd like them to be and not sufficient to win against the pirate flotilla guarding the base and we are, indirectly asking for your assistance, since you also have interests. You get to save your soldiers and don't face public pressure for either helping us or leaving soldiers behind and I don't get hanged back home for cooperating with you. It's a beneficial deal for both sides." The moment Hackett had finished his last sentence, Morell simply nodded and said  
"Alright, then let's get to business. Send us the data and we'll move out within the hour.".

With that, Hackett and Morell's 'discussion' was over the System Alliance Admiral turned towards Garrus and Liara, obviously hoping to also secure some support from the Citadel for this operation. However, Marc was almost one hundred percent certain that he wouldn't have much success with that, considering how little influence Liara and Garrus had and how much red tape normally blocked any military operation sanctioned by the Council. Unless of course it's a Spectre mission, but that would not be sufficient here.

"Lieutenant, I'm sorry but you and your team still need to stay with us, until we got Sergeant Williams and flight lieutenant Moreau back from these sons of bitches." Morell now addressed Marc as they were back in the slow elevator.

Once the militia men had crowbarred them our of the control hub, back on the colony, they had thankfully found Häkin really quick, he and the others had actually run to cover when the whole airfield had gone up in flames. Sadly, or luckily depending on your perspective, he had been split from the flight lieutenant and Ash afterwards and had only seen from a distance how the slavers had carried away the other two unconscious soldiers. Well at least they now know where they could search their people, at least if they were fast enough, before the slavers shipped them away, probably into batarian territory where they would be out of range.

For the next half an hour Marc wondered why he and his team were actually present, they were no one representative, Rear-Admiral Morell didn't really need an escort so all they could do was standing around and try not to look too bored. Morell and Hackett had now opened a conference conversation with all the other ship captains, both from the UNSC and System Alliance, going over their options and battle plans. The System Alliance officers seemed to be uncertain about the strength of their force, even with the additional UNSC ships their force wasn't that large and it could easily end in a massacre. But, to everybody's surprise, Morell wasn't even remotely afraid of their odds, actually the opposite, he was rather sure that this operation wouldn't be any problem.

The talks were still going on, but this didn't stop the crews and skippers of the UNSC ships from taking preparations and making sure that they were ready to march out once the final orders came. There wasn't too much that could be done on board the destroyers, except for checking ammunition and drop pods, while the Marathon cruisers crew was as busy as a swarm of bees, refuelling their Longswords, checking all their arsenals and equipment. Tanks, Warthog, Pelican, Warthogs everything needed to be in perfect working order once they moved out to take care of these pirates, the longer they took, the smaller their chances would be to still find anybody to save.

Now imagine this business on the cruiser and multiply it by ten and you might get the hint of an idea how busy the Alamein was. Her flight decks, barracks, arsenals and storage rooms were an organized chaos, thousands of crew men and soldiers running past each other, sometimes into each other while gathering and preparing anything you could ever imagine needing for a planetary invasion.

In difference to the slightly smaller Orion class carriers, which were optimized for planetary assault and support of ground battle groups, the Epoch class were constructed more for space combat and space control. While they had miniaturized fabricators too, these were fewer than on an Orion-class, their real strength was in the number of troops and fighter they could carry. 16 flight decks in total, with 12 fighters on each, plus 12 reserve machines gave the ship a massive amount of options for both ground support and space control. Add to that 4 massive hangars, each with 20 Pelicans to ferry down the six battalions of Marines on board and you had a ship that could easily invade a colony by itself.

Morell was now back to the ship and every time he came on board, he felt tiny sting in his heart, remembering that it wasn't his ship anymore. Most admirals missed the times when they commanded a ship and those who didn't were not popular, neither with their subordinates nor other flag officers. He was greeted by the carriers XO once he left the Pelican and was escorted to the flag bridge, where he sat down on his chair and relaxed for a moment, before his eyes and focus turned towards the holographic sphere, that filled the central part of the bridge. Around him staff and junior officers still hurried into and out of the bridge, while others sat at their stations and worked, the saying "For every minute of battle there are a thousand hours of staff work" was really fitting in this situation.

For a few more minutes, Morell just sat in his chair, observing both the organized chaos surrounding him and the movements of the ships on the holosphere. His ships were moving perfectly in order, as their flotilla now headed for the Mass Relay. And, while he would have never admitted openly, the System Alliance ships were also doing a good job. The System Alliance officers had been worried about their odds, especially since they considered the UNSC ships to be inferior to Citadel ships. Well he would have quite some surprises for them.

 _Taruk, 12 hours later_

Taruk was supposed to be a secret, well it had been a secret until now. But the Human ships which had just entered the systems was proof enough that somebody had fucked up. Except for one cruiser, the entire raiding party for the human colonies had been wiped out, but the hundreds of human slaves were worth more than enough to make up for these loses. And this human "fleet" was so small that they could easily wipe it out. The Batarian Commander had to admit that this carrier the humans huddled around was truly massive, a small space station filled to the brim with troops and fighters. But that meant that this ship was probably not heavily armed, so no problem there.

His ships took a defensive position, the humans thankfully were stupid enough to approach them on their own. Half their ships were those ugly "bricks" the UEG and its dogs used, the other half old salarian and batarian ships somebody must have bought on the black market. He himself had eight cruiser and one and a half dozen frigates, enough to wipe this force out easily.

Time passed by, the human ship slowly approaching them, until they came to halt, about three times the maximum firing range away from the pirate flotilla. Well the carrier and the older ships stopped but the cruiser and dreadnought sized human ships continued their advance. Three of these, against his flotilla? If they wanted to die, he'd happily help them with it. Still, these ships were now reaching a rather impressive speed, hurling themselves towards his ships. They would have at least 4 or even five shots to take them out, before they got in reach.

Then something strange happened, the carrier started to fire rockets, massive rockets. But their numbers were far too small, it was only ten projectiles, which their Guardian defence systems could easily stop. The three other ships were almost in range, just a few more seconds and they could turn them into wrecks and then take out the remaining human units, show them that messing with Batarians would only lead to their death. The rockets were fast and almost in range to be intercepted, but the Commander payed them no mind, until they detonated, just outside of Guardian range.

The Commander didn't notice this anymore, sensors were limited by the speed of light and the very moment the sensors of his ship received the data about the rocket's detonation, they ceased to exist, burned out of existence by an intense Gama-Ray Laser beam. Three of these gutted the cruiser, two other cruisers also fell victim to these weapons, before their crews could even react, causing chaos and panic among the remaining batarian ships.

The new Bident-Class missiles the Alamein was equipped with had worked just as advertised by the eggheads on Reach. Each of them contained a 30-megaton nuclear warhead, which explosion was focused into a Gamma-Ray laser burst. No kinetic barrier or armour known to Citadel Space could withstand such a hit and Morrel would have destroyed the entire enemy fleet with these weapons, weren't they so incredibly expansive. Even in their modern times, nukes were expansive and the fact that nuclear mines and classical nuclear warheads also needed nukes, increased their cost even more. And the nuclear charge itself was the cheapest part of the warhead, the materials used to produce the lenses and containment fields to focus the energy of the nuclear blast were rare and expansive, making mass production a fiscal nightmare. His ships had been given 12 of these missiles in total, he kept two as and emergency reserve and he had just fired the others on those poor cruisers.

The results were great, great arguments to beat any pencil pusher down with, if they tried to argue against producing more of these weapons. But still, the price of these weapons was high, actually equipping the carrier with all the Bidents it could carry, would almost cost more than building an entire destroyer. The Marathon and her escorts still raced towards the disorganized Batarians and before while they did eventually open fire, the humans star ships were also in range.

The moment humanity had realized how outranged their ships were, scientist had done everything they could do to modify existing weapons technology. Secondary batteries had never been a real focus of human ships, Railguns themselves had only been in use a few decades and they just recently learned the proper way to use them in space. The spinal MACs of the Marathon were still the normal ones, they were more powerful than those in a frigate, but still only short range, compared to mass drivers using ezo. But the Marathon was a Marathon-B, am modified version, equipped with the most advanced secondary naval coil batteries humanity had.

These weapons fired a 2 Kilogram tungsten-uranium projectile with a speed of 1,800 km per second every five seconds, still weaker and slower than a cruiser or dreadnought spinal gun, however the Marathon-B carried to off these weapons, in addition to its own Spinal MACs. These secondary weapons allowed the Marathon-Bs to engage in long range artillery duels, until they get in knife fight range to use their MACs.

And the Marathon was not the only modified ship, the Halberd-destroyers had also been given an overhaul recently. This was pretty much the first actual combat test for the new Marathon-Bs and the Halberd-Bs. The normal Halberd had two MACs, a normal main gun and a small secondary gun and the secondary gun had been modified to similar configurations like the Marathon-Bs batteries. For the moment, only Halberds and Marathons got this overhaul, since they have the necessary space or modular nature to house these changes.

With their new, modified guns the three ships returned fire on the Batarians, focusing their fire on a single cruiser, which was taken out after a few precise salvos. The Batarians now started to coordinate their fire, too, but the high speed of the UNSC ships made it hard for them to hit anything. Every weapon on the three human ships opened fire now, over a thousand rockets racing for half a dozen unlucky batarian ships, the ships close defence weapons firing into every direction to intercept any torpedo heading towards them. The System Alliance ships also entered the battle now, but stayed about 20 000 kilometres away from the opponent, firing their main guns, bombarding the Batarians, as they tried to get a hold of the human ships. The destroyers were fast, not as fast as frigates, but they danced around the few remaining pirates, while they fired dozens of rockets at a time, while hundreds more already chased after the pirate's frigates and fighters.

The Marathon-B cruiser itself duelled with two cruisers, even their main guns seemingly unable to penetrate the cruisers thick hull, their own barriers getting pounded by the cruisers unending fire of rockets and secondary artillery. The pirates then made a mistake, trying to not get into a destroyer's range, they actually got into the cruisers effective range. Each MAC of the cruiser was fired at one pirate ship and five seconds later, the two ships were vaporized, while the Alliance frigates now chassed down the last of the pirate ships. The entire battle took only half an hour and except for some wounded and superficial damage to the cruisers and destroyer armour plating, the human ships had suffered no loses.

Not that Marc and his team knew, they were already in on the Alameins Pelicans, as the carrier and the cruiser send down their drop pods, full of ODSTs. The pirates didn't seem to have any ground to space weapons, but an intact AA gun network was to be expected and sending Pelicans against that would mean certain death. The Droop troopers would open the road and the Marines would clean up the mess. Hundreds of pods now rained down on the pirate base and caused more than just a little panic.

The majority of them were aimed for the pirates' main base, almost a suicide command, meant as a diversion, while smaller teams took care of the outlying AA positions.

One of these units was the four-man team commanded by Master Sergeant Andrea Cisp "Crispy" and she and her team were the worst nightmare those poor Batarians could imagine. Only about a dozen of them were stationed there, neither trained nor equipped to properly defend themselves against any proper attack.

So, just like their comrades in the main base, they panicked, as the four pods crashed into the ground around their position. Before they had recovered from the shock, the lids flew of the pods and the first Batarian fell to ground, killed by a random spray from Crispies sub-machinegun. Almost like a machine, she jumped out of the pod and immediately jumped behind the armoured metal box. All the Batarians were now focused on her, pinning her down, but ignoring the other three soldiers, who had landed a bit farther away.

So, panic totally gripped the pirates, once the three other ODSTs started to attack their flank, taking out three of them before they could even react. Andrea also jumped out of her cover again, SMG throwing its entire magazine at the opponents. It only took a minute and the fight was over, the pirates had had no chance and were now just a bunch of corpses and dying bodies. Not anybody left to press some information out of, so they had to look through everything themselves. And as Crispy and her Marksman, Sergeant Lee Jinn-Zou "Keeper" prepped the explosives to take out the AA-gun, just to be certain, the rest of their team screamed out from the small building.

"Well Sarge, seems like we hit the Jackpot." They stopped what they were doing and while Keeper stayed outside, Andrea went inside to inspect what the other had found. "Maverick" and "Garfield" were inspecting the entrance to a tunnel and, from what the batarian data pads said, this tunnel was a supply and emergency entrance, right into the main base of the pirates.

"Well, what can I say, seems like the gods are on our side this time. Keeper, radio the others, we need a squad on guard duty here, so we can infiltrate." There was almost a hint of amusement in Andreas voice and her entire squad grinned widely, as they radioed the other nearby ODSTs. It would take them three minutes to reach the position and Andrea had to admit, that they didn't have the time to wait for them.

"Tell them to hurry, we will go in and we won't wait for them."

Ashley's eyes followed the batarian slavers, as they hurried past her cage, panic clearly visible in the faces and movement. They were under attack and if she had any luck it was an entire carrier task force blowing this hell hole to kingdom come. Of course, they would hopefully safe her and the thousands of other enslaved people here. Some of them were human, maybe a few hundred, but the vast majority was species from the Citadel Council races, and this made Ash's blood boil.

The Council, those spineless, pencil-pushing cowards. It was their fault this all happened, for centuries they had let the Batarians do what they want, to preserve "peace". Well, what was this peace worth, if it meant that colonies and people got massacred by slavers. Sometimes war was necessary, especially if you faced something as rotten and horrible as the Batarians. And she was sure that the UNSC would not let them do what they wanted.

She could admit the fault of the UEG and the UNSC, she knew of them. But there was one thing, one thing all human factions and groups agreed upon and something they had agreed upon for over 500 years. Slavery and all those who practise it were not tolerated. But something else had also caught her attention, another slave in the cage next to hers. It was none of the Citadel races, at least she was pretty sure it wasn't, a reptilian alien, that looked a little like a bipedal Lizard with green scales covering its skin.

It hadn't spoken and had only moved to eat the tiny rations provided to them, sitting their and meditating, at least that's what Ashley guessed what it was doing. She didn't even know its gender or name, the alien just sat their and creeped everybody, even the wardens, out.

Her attention was now off the strange alien again, the Batarians now fell into complete panic, she couldn't understand them, but they ran around like a flock of scared children. They started to open the cages, hurrying the slaves away, probably to some escape shuttles, so they could save some of their "goods". Ashley wanted to struggle against them, but the electric collar they had put on her, after she crushed two eyes of a slaver, tazed her if she tried anything, or if the slavers were bored.

They lastly opened the unknown aliens cage and it stood up, half a head shorter than the Batarians, but built somewhat sturdy and muscular. What happened next, well Ashley didn't know. She heard the screams of one guard, which turned into a horrible gurgling sound as his throat had been slashed. Before anybody could react, the unknown alien had broken the other guards' neck, its speed was amazing.

The other guards raised their weapons, but two of them fell to the ground, their brains splattered across the walls, cause the lizard had already picked up a pistol from the dying guard. Several more shoots, none of the slavers had helmets on or barriers up and none of them was left in the cargo room. The alien spun around, seemingly in by instinct, as Ashley moved, pointing the gun at her, but immediately lowering it as it saw her.

He Lizard talked, for the first time, a language similar to human speech, except for the occasional hissing sound. However, they obviously were both soldiers and as such Ashley realized what he wanted her to do as he gestured with the pistol. She reached her hands out in front of her and with the same accuracy it had used to massacre the guards, the alien shot of the restraints on her arms, not even causing a tiny bruiser. Ash was impressed, whoever this alien was and although she wasn't a fan of aliens in general, she had to admit that it was legitimately good.

She immediately reached for one of the dead Batarians weapons and after remembering that she couldn't understand any alien languages without an Omni-Tool, snatched one of the dead slavers' ones. It was ill-fitting and it took her minutes to click through dozens of menus until she found language settings. The software wasn't too old, so standard English was included. The alien had been fascinated by the tool, its two small, black eyes darting between the doors and the holographic screen.

But even with the tool, its speech remained unintelligible, so it wasn't even from Citadel space, wonderful. They now liberated the slaves and those in better condition started to salvage the dead slavers equipment and weapons and still no more slavers had entered. The alien had been so fast and efficient, no Batarian had gotten out a distress call, but surely, even with the chaos of being under attack, they would notice sooner than later.

With Ash and several of the freed slaves now guarding the doors, the alien seemed comfortable enough to start looking through the crates of loot the Batarians had also stored in this cramped room, which was even smaller, now that everybody was no longer forced into small cages. A bullet flew over her head, as Ash's instincts kicked in and she ducked behind the crate, while the freed slaves started to panic. The slavers had noticed now and several of them were forcing their way in, to be greeted by erratic fire from the former slaves and precise bursts from the Marine.

This made the Batarians fall back a little, while several of the civilians were already on the floor, wounded or dead. However, in the brief moment she glimpsed at the alien who had allowed them all to be free in the first place, she spotted something on its face, that looked like a wide, satisfied smile. The Lizard pulled out a Pistol and a Helmet out crate and immediately put on the dented piece of armour, which concealed its entire head.

The alien's precision, already baffling till now, became unbelievable, as it fired an endless stream of perfect headshot from the pistol, which seemed to have an endless magazine. After about fifty bullets in under two minutes, now slaver was left to attack them, and a smoking magazine fell out the weapon. The alien went back to the crate, getting more armour pieces and magazines, until its entire body was covered in metallic-brown armour, pistol holstered and a strange looking rifle in its hand

Nothing UNSC Marines would use, but Ashley had enough knowledge about weapons to know what it was and if the lizard fired it in here, it would probably kill several of the civies. So instead the next slaver that tried to enter the room just got more pistol headshots and a burst from Ash. Now, with its armour and weapons gathered, the alien gestured to the door, to the hallways full of dead Batarians. Ash understood and relayed the order to the civies.

"Follow me."

* * *

Authors note: Before there are any guesses or discussions. Except for maybe the appearence, the unkown alien is not from any other franchise. It's OC and it will be explained (if I ever get that far, probably Chapter 20, 15 years from now)

But well, I hope you enjoyed this Chapter, until next time.


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